STUDIES   OF  CHRISTIANITY: 

OR, 

TIMELY    THOUGHTS    FOR    RELIGIOUS 
THINKERS. 

A    SERIES    OF    PAPERS, 

BY 

JAMES      MARTINEAU. 


EDITED    BT 

WILLIAM     R.    ALGER. 


BOSTON: 

AMERICAN    UNITARIAN    ASSOCIATION. 
25  BEACON  S 


Kmtorrsttg  $)rrss 

JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS. 


PAOI 

INTRODUCTORY  THOUGHTS,  FROM  MR.  MARTINEAU'S  WRITINGS  v 

DISTINCTIVE  TYPES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 1 

CHRISTIANITY  WITHOUT  PRIEST  AND  WITHOUT  RITUAL     .  35 

INCONSISTENCY  OF  THE  SCHEME  OF  VICARIOUS  REDEMPTION  83 

MEDIATORIAL  RELIGION         .                                        .         ,  147 

FIVE  POINTS  OF  CHRISTIAN  FAITH 177 

CREED  AND  HERESIES  OF  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY          .        .  201 

THE  CREED  OF  CHRISTENDOM 266 

THE  ETHICS  OF  CHRISTENDOM 299 

THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF    .                        ....  356 

ONE  GOSPEL  IN  MANY  DIALECTS 399 

ST.  PAUL  AND  HIS  MODERN  STUDENTS 414 

SIN  :  WHAT  IT  is,  WHAT  IT  is  NOT 466 

THB  DUTIES  OF  CHRISTIANS  IN  AN  AGE  OF  CONTROVERSY  478 


2061835 


INTRODUCTORY    THOUGHTS, 


MR.    MARTINEAU'S    WRITINGS, 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  American  Unitarian  Association  in  1835  re- 
printed from  the  English  edition,  among  their  Tracts, 
a  Sermon  on  "  The  Existing  State  of  Theology  as  an 
Intellectual  Pursuit  and  of  Religion  as  a  Moral  In- 
fluence." Its  rare  merits  elicited  great  praise.  Its 
author  was  the  Rev.  James  Martineau,  then  a  settled 
minister  in  Liverpool.  Since  that  time,  his  occasional 
publications  from  year  to  year  have  been  winning  a 
wider  audience,  and  awakening  a  deeper  admiration. 
The  history  of  his  mind  has  been  a  broadening  track 
of  light.  And  now  the  Association  feel  that  they 
cannot  do  a  greater  favor  to  the  reading  public,  or 
better  aid  that  cause  of  Liberal  Christianity  whose 
servants  they  are,  than  by  printing  a  collection  of  the 
later  writings  of  this  gifted  man,  whom  they  first  in- 
troduced to  American  Unitarians  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury ago. 

The  list  of  works  prefixed  to  the  article  here  entitled 
"  Distinctive  Types  of  Christianity,"  as  it  appeared 
in  the  Westminster  Review,  and  the  opening  sentence 
referring  to  them,  have  been  accidentally  omitted. 
Two  or  three  of  the  papers  belong  to  the  author's 
earlier  years,  but  are  inserted  here  equally  on  account 


viii  INTRODUCTION. 

of  their  eminent  ability,  their  special  timeliness,  and 
their  striking  adaptation  to  the  general  purpose  of  the 
work  ;  namely,  to  throw  light  on  the  true  nature  of 
Christianity.  They  will  also  be  new  to  most  of  those 
whom  they  now  reach.  The  last  paper  in  the  volume 
is  one  of  the  first  its  writer  published,  in  his  compara- 
tive youth.  We  shall  be  disappointed  if  the  benignant 
wisdom  and  moral  fidelity  of  its  catholic  lessons  do  not 
secure  a  sympathetic  response  in  many  a  quarter  once 
closed  against  such  appeals. 

In  selecting  from  Mr.  Martineau's  numerous  inval- 
uable articles,  not  already  published  in  book-form,  the 
contents  of  the  present  work,  the  rule  has  not  been  so 
much  to  choose  the  ablest  productions,  as  to  take  those 
best  fitted  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  time,  by  diffusing 
among  ministers,  students  of  divinity,  and  the  culti- 
vated laity  a  knowledge  of  the  most  advanced  theologi- 
cal and  religious  thought  yet  attained.  We  regret 
that  the  necessary  limits  of  the  volume  exclude  several 
of  the  author's  most  instructive  and  inspiring  essays ; 
particularly  the  magnificent  one  in  the  National  Re- 
view upon  "  Newman,  Coleridge,  and  Carlyle  "  ;  also 
the  one  upon  "  Lessing  as  a  Theologian." 

We  have  called  this  volume  "  Studies  of  Christian- 
ity," simply  as  a  convenient  indication  of  the  general 
character  of  its  contents.  In  justice  to  the  author,  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  separate  papers  were 
prepared  to  meet  various  occasions,  without  a  suspi- 
cion that  they  would  ever  be  brought  together  to  form 
a  book.  Of  course  they  do  not  express  his  complete 
views  of  the  mighty  subject  which  they  fragmentarily 
treat.  The  relative  order  and  rank  of  his  convictions, 
the  interpretation  of  Christianity  from  its  inner  side, 
appear  much  better  in  his  "  Endeavors  after  the  Chris- 


INTRODUCTION.  bt 

tian  Life,"  —  by  far  the  richest  and  noblest  series  of 
sermons  in  the  English  language.  Still,  a  kind  of 
unity  pervades  the  different  pieces  composing  this  col- 
lection. One  Christ-like  strain  of  sentiment  breathes 
through  them  all.  The  same  consecrating  fealty  to 
truth  presides  over  them  all.  The  same  grand  outline 
of  principles  and  unvarying  standard  of  judgment  are 
constantly  evident.  The  same  marvellous  acumen, 
breadth  of  learning,  and  exquisite  culture,  everywhere 
appear.  Each  article  is  more  or  less  directly  an  illus- 
tration of  Christianity,  as  something  moral,  spiritual, 
vital,  dynamic,  to  be  practically  assimilated  by  the  soul, 
in  distinction  from  the  common  exposition  of  it,  as 
something  sacerdotal,  dogmatic,  formal,  forensic,  once 
enacted  and  now  to  be  mimetically  observed.  The 
energetic  patience  of  labor,  the  detersive  intellect,  the 
unalloyed  devoutness  of  spirit,  the  telescopic  range  both 
of  faculty  and  equipment,  revealed  even  in  these  way- 
side products,  awaken  in  us  an  unappeasable  desire  for 
a  more  purposed  and  systematic  work  from  the  same 
mind,  now  in  its  fullest  maturity.  In  the  mean  time 
we  will  express  our  grateful  appreciation  of  the  con- 
tributions already  furnished,  by  giving  them  further 
circulation,  assured  that  no  truly  pious  and  intelligent 
person,  free  from  bigotry  and  shackles,  can  peruse  them 
without  receiving  equal  measures  of  delight  and  profit. 
Mr.  Martineau  is  so  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
processes  and  results  of  spiritual  experience,  with  the 
sciences  of  nature,  and  with  the  whole  realm  of  met- 
aphysical philosophy,  and  his  own  wealthy  faculties 
are  so  tenacious  in  their  activity  and  freshness,  that 
every  subject  he  touches  receives  novelty,  light,  and 
ornament.  He  is  emphatically  a  teacher  for  the 
teachers,  —  a  greater  guide  and  master  for  the  common 


X"  INTRODUCTION. 

guides  and  masters.  Traversing  the  whole  domain  of 
human  contemplation  with  the  defining  lines  of  analy- 
sis, clothing  the  severe  materials  of  science  with  the 
colors  of  aesthetic  art,  he  sheds  on  every  theme  the  illu- 
mination of  intellectual  genius,  and  transfuses  every 
thought  with  the  distinctive  sentiments  of  piety.  Thus 
is  afforded  that  rarest  of  all  spectacles,  —  and  the  one 
now  most  needed  by  the  cultivated  religious  world,  — 
of  a  man  who  is  greatly  endowed  at  once  as  philoso- 
pher, poet,  and  Christian,  and  who  with  simultaneous 
earnestness  in  each  capacity  is  devoted,  by  the  whole 
labors  of  his  life,  to  the  instruction  of  mankind. 

For  these  reasons,  we  feel  it  a  duty  to  attract  as 
much  attention  as  possible  to  Mr.  Martincau's  past 
and  expected  publications.  The  peerless  intelligence, 
the  bracing  fidelity,  the  essential  nobleness  and  cath- 
olicity, the  tender  beauty  and  reverence,  of  his  utter- 
ances, his  consummate  mastery  of  the  great  topics  he 
handles,  seem  to  us  fitted  in  a  solitary  degree  to  meet 
the  highest  wants  of  the  age,  —  to  do  divine  service  in 
the  conflict  of  scepticism,  sensuality,  and  decay  against 
all  that  is  truest  and  purest  in  the  religious  faith  and 
moral  life  of  Christendom.  Therefore,  to  persons  who, 
unacquainted  with  the  author's  previous  works,  may 
read  the  papers  here  collected,  we  would  recommend 
as  the  best  books  for  educated  and  earnest  Christian 
thinkers,  Mr.  Martineau's  "  Rationale  of  Religious  In- 
quiry," the  volume  of  his  "  Miscellanies  "  edited  by 
the  Rev.  T.  S.  King,  and  the  two  series  of  "  Endeav- 
ors after  the  Christian  Life  "  recently  republished  in 
one  volume  by  Messrs.  Munroe  and  Company. 

We  shall  make  up  the  rest  of  this  introductory  paper 
by  quoting  from  some  of  Mr.  Martineau's  articles,  not 
generally  accessible,  a  few  specimens  of  those  thoughts 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

which,  if  freely  received  in  these  times  of  theological 
doubt  and  turmoil,  would  lead  many  a  religious  think- 
er towards  the  truth  and  peace  he  covets. 

How  clearly  the  following  passage  shows  the  true 

RELATION  BETWEEN  NATURAL  AND  REVEALED  RELIGION. 

The  contempt  with  which  it  is  the  frequent  practice  of 
divines  to  treat  the  grounds  of  natural  religion,  betrays  an 
ignorance  both  of  the  true  office  of  revelation  and  of  the  true 
wants  of  the  human  heart.  It  cannot  be  justified,  except  on 
the  supposition  that  there  is  some  contradiction  between  the 
teachings  of  creation  and  those  of  Christ,  with  some  decided 
preponderance  of  proof  in  favor  of  the  latter.  Even  if  the 
Gospel  furnished  a  series  of  perfectly  new  truths,  of  which 
nature  had  been  profoundly  silent,  it  would  be  neither  reason- 
able nor  safe  to  fix  exclusive  attention  on  these  recent  and  his- 
torical acquisitions,  and  prohibit  all  reference  to  those  elder 
_oracles  of  God,  by  which  hisSpirit^n^Jiririedjn _the_glories 
of  his  universe,  taught  the  fathers  ojT  our  race.  And  if  it  be 
the  function  of  Christianity  not  to  administer  truth  entirely 
new,  but  to  corroborate  by  fresh  evidence,  and  invest  with 
new  beauty,  and  publishjx)  the  millions  with  a  voice  of  power, 
a  faith  latent  already  in  the  hearts  of  many,  and  scattered 
through  the  speculations  of  £he  wise  and  noble  few,  —  to 
CTect  into  realities  the  dreams  which  had  visited  a  half-in- 
spired philosophy,  interpreting  the  life  and  lot  of  man ;  — 
then  there  is  a  relation  between  the  religion  of  nature  and 
that  of  Christ,  —  a  relation  of  original  and  supplement,  — 
which  renders  the  one  essential  to  the  apprehension  of  the 
other.  Revelation,  you  say,  has  given  us  the  clew  by  which 
to  thread  the  labyrinth  of  creation,  and  extricate  ourselves 
from  its  passages  of  mystery  and  gloom.  Be  it  so ;  still, 
there,  in  the  scene  thus  cleared  of  its  perplexity,  must  our 
worship  be  paid,  and  the  manifestations  of  Deity  be  sought. 
Jf  the  use  of  revelation  be  to  explain  the  perplexities  of  Prov- 


xil  INTRODUCTION. 

idence  and  life,  it  would  be  a  strange  use  to  make  of  the  ex- 
planation were  we  to  turn  away  from  the  thing  explained. 
.  We  hold  the  key  of  heaven  in  our  hands.     What  folly  to  be 
"  ,  for  ever  extolling  and  venerating  it,  whilst  we  prohibit  all  ap- 
proach to  the  temple  whose  gates  it  is  destined  to  unlock. 
•?-• 

One  would  search  long  to  find  a  finer  illustration 
than  is  here  given  of  the  real 

NATURE  OF  DEVOTION. 

In  Devotion  there  is  this  great  peculiarity,  —  that  it  is  nei- 
ther the  work  nor  the  play  of  our  nature,  but  is  something 
higher  than  either,  —  more  ideal  than  the  one,  more  real  than 
the  other.  All  human  activities  besides  are  one  of  these  two 
things,  —  either  the  mere  aim  at  an  external  end,  or  the  mere 
outcome  of  an  inner  feeling.  On  the  one  hand,  we  plough 
and  sow,  we  build  and  navigate,  that  we  may  win  the  adorn- 
ments and  securities  of  life  ;  on  the  other  hand,  we  sing  and 
dance,  we  carve  and  paint,  that  we  may  put  forth  the  pressure 
of  harmony  and  joy  and  beauty  breaking  from  within.  Me- 
chanical Toil  terminates  in  a  solid  product ;  graceful  Art  is 
content  with  simple  expression ;  but  Religion  is  degraded 
-  when  it  is  reduced  to  either  character.  It  is  not  a  labor  of 
i  utility ;  and  he  who  looks  to  it  as  a  means  of  safety,  to  ingra- 
tiate himself  with  an  awful  God,  and  bespeak  an  interest  in  a 
hidden  Future,  is  an  utter  stranger  to  its  essence ;  his  habits 
'  and  words  may  be  cast  in  its  mould,  but  the  spark  of  its  life 
^  is  not  kindled  in  his  heart.  When  fed  by  the  fuel  of  pru- 
dence, the  fire  is  all  spent  in  fusing  it  into  form  ;  and  the 
finished  product  is  a  cold  and  metal  mimicry,  that  neither 
moves  nor  glows.  Nor  is  Religion  a  simple  gesture  of  pas- 
sion ;  and  to  class  it  with  mere  natural  language,  to  treat  it 
as  the  rhythmical  delirium  of  the  soul  working  off  an  irre- 
pressible enthusiasm,  is  to  empty  it  of  its  real  meaning  and 
contents,  and  sink  it  from  a  divine  attraction  to  a  human 
excitement.  The  postures  and  movements  and  tones  which. 


INTRODUCTION.  Xlll 

simply  manifest  the  impassioned  mind  are  content  to  go  off 
into  space,  and  pass  away ;  they  direct  themselves  nowhither ; 
they  have  no  more  object  than  a  convulsion ;  they  ask  only 
leave  to  be  the  last  shape  of  a  feeling  that  must  have  way  ; 
and  be  the  inspiration  what  it  may,  they  close  and  consum- 
mate its  history.  But  he  who  prays  is  at  the  beginning  of 
aspiration,  not  at  the  evaporating  end  of  impulse ;  he  is 
drawn,  not  driven ;  he  is  not  painting  himself  upon  vacancy, 
but  is  surrendering  himself  to  a  Presence  real  and  everlast- 
ing. If  he  flings  out  his  arms,  it  is  not  in  blind  paroxysm, 
but  that  he  may  embrace  and  be  embraced ;  if  he  cries  aloud, 
it  is  that  he  may  be  heard ;  if  he  makes  melody  of  the  silent 
heart,  it  is  no  soliloquy  flung  into  wnptiness,  but  the  low- 
breathing  love  of  spirit  to  Spirit.  Devotion  is  not  the  play 
even  of  the  highest  faculties,  but  their  deep  earnest.  It  is  no 
doubt  the  culminating  point  of  reverence ;  but  reverence  is 
impossible  without  an  object,  and  could  never  culminate  at 
all,  or  pass  into  the  Infinite,  unless  its  object  did  so  too.  In 
every  case  we  find  that  the  faculties  and  susceptibilities  of  a 
being  tell  true,  and  are  the  exact  measure  of  the  outer  life  it 
has  to  live ;  and  just  as  many  and  as  large  proportions  as  it 
has,  to  just  so  many  and  so  great  objects  does  it  stand  relat- 
ed ;  so  that  from  the  axis  of  its  nature  you  may  always  draw 
the  curve  of  its  existence.  Human  worship,  therefore,  turn- 
ing to  the  living  God  as  the  infant's  eye  to  light,  is  itself  a 
witness  to  Him  whom  it  feels  after  and  adores }  it  is  "  the 
image  and  shadow  of  heavenly  things,"  the  parallel  cham- 
ber in  our  nature  with  that  Holy  of  Holies  whither  its  incense 
ever  ascends. 

In  a  similar  strain  is  this  argument  to  show  that 

DEVOTION  IS  NOT  A  MISTAKE. 

Be  assured,  all  visible  greatness  of  mind  grows  in  looking 
at  an  invisible  that  is  greater.  And  since  it  is  inconceivable 
that  what  is  most  sublime  in  humanity  should  spring  from  vig- 

b 


3UV  INTRODUCTION. 

ion  of  a  thing  that  is  not,  that  what  is  most  real  and  com- 
manding with  us  should  come  of  stretching  the  soul  into  the 
unreal  and  empty,  that  historic  durability  should  be  the  gift 
of  spectral  fancies,  we  must  hold  these  devout  natures  to  be 
at  one  with  everlasting  Fact,  —  to  feel  truly  that  the  august 
forms  of  Justice  and  Holiness  are  at  home  in  heaven,  the  ob- 
ject there  of  clearer  insight  and  more  perfect  veneration. 
There  are  those  who  please  themselves  with  the  idea  that  the 
world  will  outgrow  its  habits  of  worship ;  that  the  newspaper 
will  supersede  the  preacher  and  prophet ;  that  the  apprehen- 
sion of  scientific  laws  will  replace  the  fervor  of  moral  inspi- 
rations ;  that  this  sphere  of  being  will  then  be  perfectly 
administered  when  no  reference  to  another  distracts  attention. 
But,  for  my  own  part,  I  am  persuaded,  that  life  would  soon 
become  intolerable  on  earth,  were  it  copied  from  nothing  in 
the  heavens ;  that  its  deeper  affections  would  pine  away  and 
its  lights  of  purest  thought  grow  pale,  if  it  lay  shrouded  in  no 
Holy  Spirit,  but  only  in  the  wilderness  of  space.  The  most 
sagacious  secular  voice  leaves,  after  all,  a  chord  untouched  in 
the  human  heart :  listening  too  long  to  its  didactic  monotone, 
we  begin  to  sigh  for  the  rich  music  of  hope  and  faith.  The 
dry  glare  of  noonday  knowledge  hurts  the  eye  by  plying  it 
for  use  and  denying  it  beauty ;  and  we  long  to  be  screened 
behind  a  cloud  or  two  of  moisture  and  of  mystery,  that  shall 
mellow  the  glory  and  cool  the  air.  Never  can  the  world  be 
less  to  us,  than  when  we  make  it  all  in  all. 

Our  author  makes  a  striking  reply  to  the  common 
assertion  that 

"THEOLOGY  IS  NOT  A  PROGRESSIVE  SCIENCE." 

It  may,  however,  be  retrogressive ;  and  it  is  sure  to  repay 
flippant  neglect  by  lending  its  empty  space  to  mean  delusions. 
To  its  great  problems  some  answer  will  always  be  attempted ; 
and  there  is  much  to  choose  between  the  solutions,  however 
imperfect,  found  by  reverential  wisdom,  and  the  degrading 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

falsehoods  tendered  in  reply  by  the  indifferent  and  superficial. 
Even  in  their  failures,  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  the 
explorings  of  the  seeing  and  the  blind.  We  deny,  however, 
that  Christian  theology  can  assume  any  aspect  of  failure, 
except  to  those  who  use  a  false  measure  of  success.  It  is 
not  in  the  nature  of  religion,  of  poetry,  of  art,  to  exhibit  the 
kind  of  progress  that  belongs  to  physical  science.  They  dif- 
fer from  it  in  seeking,  not  the  phenomena  of  the  universe,  but 
its  essence,  —  not  itsjaws  of  change,  but  its  eternal  meanings, 
—  not  outward  nature,  in  short,  except  as  expressive  of  the  in- 
ner thought  of  God ;  and  being  thus  intent  upon  the  enduring 
spirit  and  very  ground  of  things,  they  cannot  grow  by  nu- 
merical accretion  of  facts  and  exacter  registration  of  succes- 
sions. They  are  the  product,  not  of  the  patient  sense  and 
comparing  intelligence  which  are  always  at  hand,  but  of  a 
deeper  and  finer  insight,  changing  with  the  atmosphere  of  the 
affections  and  will.  Instead  of  looking,  therefore,  for  perpet- 
ual advance  of  discovery  in  theology,  we  should  naturally 
expect  an  ebb  and  flow  of  light,  answering  to  the  moral  con- 
dition of  men's  minds  ;  and  may  be  content  if  the  divine^ 
truth,  lost  in  the  dulness  of  a  material  age,  clears  itself  into/ 
fresh  forms  with  the  returning  breath  of  a  better  time. 

Most  readers  will  find  suggestions  of  great  freshness 
hi  the  passage  next  cited :  — 

THE  HEAKT  OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

To  lose  sight  of  this  principle  in  estimating  Christianity, 
and  to  insist  on  judging  it,  not  by  its  matured  character  in 
Christendom,  not  by  the  unconscious  spirit  of  its  founders, 
but  by  their  personal  views  and  purposes,  is  to  overlook  the 
divine  in  it  in  order  to  fasten  on  the  human ;  to  seek  the 
winged  creature  of  the  air  in  the  throbbing  chrysalis  ;  and 
is  like  judging  the  place  of  the  Hebrews  in  history  by  the 
court  and  the  proverbs  of  Solomon,  or  the  value  of  Puritan- 
ism by  the  sermon  of  a  hill-preacher  before  the  civil  war. 


Xvi  INTRODUCTION. 

'  The  primitive  Christianity  was  certainly  different  from  that 
of  other  ages ;  but  there  is  no  reason  for  believing  that  it 
was  better.  The  representation  often  made  of  the  early 
Church,  as  having  only  truth,  and  feeling  only  love,  and  liv- 
ing in  simple  sanctity,  is  contradicted  by  every  page  of  the 
Christian  records.  The  Epistles  are  entirely  occupied  in 
driving  back  guilt  and  passion,  or  in  correcting  errors  of  be- 
lief; nor  is  it  always  possible  to  approve  of  the  temper  in 
which  they  perform  the  one  task,  or  to  assent  to  the  methods 
by  which  they  attempt  the  other.  Principles  and  affections 

j  were  indeed  secreted  in  the  heart  of  the  first  disciples,  which 
were  to  have  a  great  future,  and  to  become  the  highest  truth 

,  of  the  world.  But  it  was  precisely  of  these  that  they  rarely 
thought  at  all.  The  Apostles  themselves  speak  slightingly  of 
them,  as  baby's  food ;  and  the  great  faith  in  God,  the  need  of 
repentant  purity  of  heart,  with  the  trust  in  immortality,  — 
the  very  doctrines  which  we  should  name  as  the  permanent 
essence  of  Christian  faith,  —  are  expressly  declared  by  them 
to  be  the  childish  rudiments  of  belief,  on  which  the  attention 
of  the  grown  Christian  will  disdain  to  dwell.  And  what  did 
they  prefer  to  these  sublime  truths,  as  the  nutriment  of  their 
life  and  the  pride  of  their  wisdom  ?  ^Allegories  about  Isaac 
and  Ishmael,  parallels  between  Christ  and  Melchisedec,  new 
readings  of  history  and  prophecy  to  suit  the  events  in  Pales- 
tine, and  a  constant  outlook  for  the  end  of  all  things'  These 
were  the  grand  topics  on  which  their  minds  eagerly  worked, 
and  on  which  they  labored  to  construct  a  consistent  theory. 
These  give  the  form  to  their  doctrine,  the  matter  to  their 
spirit.  These  are  what  you  will  get,  if  you  go  indiscrim- 
inately to  their  writings  for  a  creed  :  and  these  are  no  more 
Christianity  than  the  pretensions  of  Hildebrand  or  the  visions 
of  Swedenborg.  The  true  religion  lies  elsewhere,  just  in  the 
things  that  were  ever  present  with  them,  but  never  esteemed. 
Just  as  your  friend  may  spend  his  anxiety  on  his  station,  his 
.  usefulness,  his  appearance  and  repute,  and  fear  lest  he  should 
show  nothing  deserving  your  regard,  while  all  the  time  you 
love  him^for  the  pure  graces^  the  native  wild-flowers,  of  his 


INTRODUCTION.  XVli 

heart ;  so  do  the  choicest  servants  of  God  ever  think  one  ^ 
thing  of  themselves,  while  they  are  dear  to  him  and  revered 
by  us  for  quite  another.  "  The  weak  things  "  in  the  Church 
not  less  than  in  "  the  world  hath  he  chosen  to  confound  the 
mighty  ;  the  simple,  to  strike  dumb  the  wise ;  and  things  that 
are  not,  to  supersede  the  things  that  are." 

In  rude  ages,  and  amid  feudal  customs,  it  has  perhaps  been 
no  unhappy  thing  that  this  image  of  servitude  has  been  trans- 
mitted into  the  conceptions  of  faith:  it  may  have  touched 
with  some  sanctity  an  inevitable  submission,  and  mingled  a 
sentiment  of  loyalty  with  religion.     But  the  external  relation 
of  serf  and  lord  is  no  type  of  the  internal  relation  of  spirit 
to  spirit,  which  alone   constitutes  religion  to  us.     To    God  N 
himself,  with  all  his  infinitude,  we  are  not  slaves  ;  we  are  noti 
his  property,  but  his  children ;  he  regards  us,  not  as  things, 
but  as  persons  ;  he  does  not  so  much  command  us,  as  appeal ' 
to  us ;  and  in  our  obedience,  it  is  not  his  lidding  that  we 
serve,  but  that  divine  Law  of  Right  of  which  he  makes  us 
conscious  as  the  rule  of  His  nature  only  more  perfectly  than , 
of  ours.      To  obey  him  as  slaves,  in  fear,  and  with  an  eye 
upon  his  power,  is,  with  all  our  punctuality  and  anxiety,  sim- 
ply and  entirely  to  disobey  him ;  nor  is  anything  precious  in  , 
his  sight,  except  the  free  consent  of  heart  with  which  we 
apprehend  what  is  holy  to  his  thought  and  embrace  what  is  ' 
in  harmony  with  his  perfection.     Still  less  can  we  be  slaves ' 
to  Christ,  who  is  no  autocrat  to  us,  but  our  freely  followed  i 
leader  towards  God ;  the  guide  of  our  pilgrim  troop  in  quest 
of  a  holy  land ;  who  gives  us  no  law  from  the  mandates  of  ' 
his  will,  but  only  interprets  for  us,  and  makes  burn  within  , 
us,  in  characters  of  fire,  the  law  of  our  own  hearts  ;  who  has 
no  power  over  us,  except  through  the  affections  he  awakens 
and  the  aspirations  he  sets  upon  the  watch.    We  have  emerged  ~ 
from  the  Religion  of  Law,  whose  only  sentiment  is  that  of 
obedience  to  sovereignty ;  we  have  passed  from  the  religion  of 
Salvation,  whose  life  consists  in  gratitude  to  a  Deliverer  ;  and  . 
we  are  capable  only  of  a  religion  of  reverence,  which  bows  • 
before  the  authority  of  Goodness.     And  in  the  infinite  ranks  ^ 


INTRODUCTION. 

of  excellence,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  there  are  no 
lords  and  slaves ;  the  dependence  is  ever  that  of  internal 
charm,  not  of  external  bond  ;  the  authority  is  but  represented 
and  impersonated  in  another  and  a  better  soul,  but  has  its 
living  seat  within  our  own  ;  and  in  this  true  and  elevating 
worship,  the  more  we  are  disposed  of  by  another,  the  more 

r  do  we  feel  that  we  are  our  own.     This  is  a  relation  which 

<  the  political  terms  of  the  expected  theocracy  are  ill  adapted 
to  express  ;  and  if  we  have  required  many  centuries  to  grope 

I  our  way  to  this  clearest  glory  of  religion,  to  disengage  it 
from  the  impure  admixture  of  servile  fear  and  revolting  pre- 
sumption ;  if  it  has  taken  long  for  us  to  melt  away  in  our 
imagination  the  images  of  thrones  and  tribunals,  of  prize- 
givings  and  prisons,  of  a  police  and  assizes  of  the  universe ; 
if  only  at  the  eleventh  hour  of  our  faith,  the  cloud  has  passed 
away,  and  shown  us  the  true  angel-ladder  that  springs  from 
earth  to  heaven,  the  pure  climax  of  souls  whereon  each  be- 
low looks  up  and  rises,  yet  each  above  bends  down  and  helps  ; 
—  the  discovery  which  brings  such  peace  and  freedom  to  the 
heart,  has  been  delayed  by  the  mistaken  identification  of  the 

,  entire  creed  of  the  first  age  with  the  essence  of  Christianity. 
Now  that  God  has  shown  us  so  much  more,  has  tried  the 
divine  seed  of  the  Gospel  on  so  various  a  soil  of  history,  and 
enabled  us  to  distinguish  its  fairest  blossoms  and  its  choicest 
fruits,  a  much  larger  meaning  than  was  possible  at  first  must 
be  given  to  the  purpose  of  his  revelation.  Even  to  Paul, 
Christ  was  mainly  the  great  representative  of  a  theocratic 
idea;  and  was  in  no-^faar  sense  an  object  of  spiritual  belief, 
than  that  he  was  not  on  earth  and  mortal,  but  in  heaven  and 
immortal.  That  faith  in  Christ,  which  then  prominently 
denoted  belief  in  his  appointed  return,  and  allegiance  to  him 
as  God's  viceroy  in  this  world,  is  now  transferred  into  quite 
a  different  thing.  It  is  altogether  a  moral  and  affectionate 
sentiment :  an  acknowledgment  of  him  as  the  highest  imper- 
sonation of  divine  excellence  and  inspired  insight  yet  given 
to  the  world ;  a  trust  in  him  as  the  only  realized  type  of  per- 
fection that  can  mediate  for  us  between  ourselves  and  God  ; 


INTRODUCTION.  XIX 

a  faithfulness  to  him,  as  making  us  conscious  of  what  we  are 
and  what  God  and  our  conscience  would  have  us  to  be.  It  is 
vain  to  pretend  that  revelation  is  a  fixed  and  stereotyped 
thing.  It  was  born,  as  the  divinest  things  must  be,  among 
human  conditions  ;  and  into  it  ever  since  human  conditions 
have  perpetually  flowed.  The  elements  of  Hebrew  thought 
surrounded  the  sacred  centre  at  first,  and  have  been  errone- 
ously identified  with  it  by  all  Unitarian  churches  in  every 
age.  The  Hellenic  intellect  afterwards  streamed  towards  the 
fresh  point  of  life  and  faith,  and  gathered  around  it  the,  met- 
aphysical system  of  Trinitarian  dogma  in  which  orthodox 
communions  of  all  times  have,  with  parallel  error,  sought  the 
essence  of  the  Gospel.  The  true  principle  of  the  religion  has 
been  secreted  in  both,  and  consisted^  in  neither  :  it  has  lain 
unnoticed  in  the  midst,  in  the  silent^  chamber  of  the  heart, 
around  which  the  clamor  of  the  disputatious_intellect  whirls 
without  entrance.  The  agency  of  Christ's  mind  as  the  ex-N 
pression  of  God's  moral  nature  and  providence,  and  as  the 
realized  ideal  of  beauty  and  excellence,  —  this  is  the  power 
of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God,  which  has  made  vain  the 
counsels  of  the  world,  and  baffled  the  foolishness  of  the 
Church.  This  is  the  Gospel's  centre  of  stability,  —  "  Jesus 
Christ,  the  same  je^te^da^J^daj^  and  for  ever." 


Few  persons  can  be  insensible  to  the  sublimity  of 
this  expression  upon  the  relation  between 

CHRIST,   NATURE,  PROVIDENCE,  AND  GOD. 

In  conclusion,  then,  I  revert,  with  freshened  persuasion,  to 
the  statement  with  which  I  commenced.  Jesus  Christ  of 
Nazareth,  God  hath  presented  to  us  simply  in  his  inspired 
humanity.  Him  we  accept,  not  indeed  as  very  God,  but  as 
the  true  image  of  God,  commissioned  to  show  what  no  writ- 
ten doctrinal  record  could  declare,  the  entire  moral  perfections 
of  Deity.  We  accept,  not  indeed  his  body,  not  the  strug- 
gles of  his  sensitive  nature,  not  the  travail  of  his  soul,  but 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

his  purity,  his  tenderness,  his  absolute  devotion  to  the  great 
idea  of  right,  his  patient  and  compassionate  warfare  against 
misery  and  guilt,  as  the  most  distinct  and  beautiful  expres- 
sion of  the  Divine  mind.  The  peculiar  office  of  Christ  is  to 
supply  a  new  moral  image  of  Providence  ;  and  everything, 
therefore,  except  the  moral  complexion  of  his  mind,  we  leave 
behind  as  human  and  historical  merely,  and  apply  to  no  re- 
ligious use.  I  have  already  stated  in  what  way  nature  and 
the  Gospel  combine  to  bring  before  us  the  great  object  of  our 
trust  and  worship.  ir  The  universe  gives  us  the  scale  of  God, 
and  Christ,  his  Spirit.  We  climb  to  the  infinitude  of  his 
nature  by  the  awful  pathway  of  the  stars,  where  whole  forests 
of  worlds  silently  quiver  here  and  there,  like  a  small  leaf  of 
light.  We  dive  into  his  eternity,  through  the  ocean  waves 
of  time,  that  roll  and  solemnly  break  on  the  imagination,  as 
we  trace  the  wrecks  of  departed  things  upon  our  present 
globe.  The  scope  of  his  intellect,  and  the  majesty  of  his 
rule,  are  seen  in  the  tranquil  order  and  everlasting  silence 
that  reign  through  the  fields  of  his  volition.  And  the  spirit 
that  animates  the  whole  is  like  that  of  the  Prophet  of  Naza- 
reth ;  the  thoughts  that  fly  upon  the  swift  light  throughout 
creation,  charged  with  fates  unnumbered,  are  like  the  healing 
mercies  of  One  that  passed  no  sorrow  by.  JThe  government 
of  this  world,  its  mysterious  allotments  of  good  and  ill,  its 
successions  of  birth  and  death,  its  hopes  of  progress  and  of 
peace,  each  life  of  individual  or  nation,  is  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  One,  of  whose  rectitude  and  benevolence,  whose 
sympathy  with  all  the  holiest  aspirations  of  our  virtue  and 
i  our  love,  Christ  is  the  appointed  emblem.  A  faith  that 
spreads  around  and  within  the  mind  a  Deity  thus  sublime 
and  holy,  feeds  the  light  of  every  pure  affection,  and  presses 
with  omnipotent  power  on  the  conscience ;  and  our  only 
prayer  is,  that  we  may  walk  as  children  of  such  light. 

It  seems  as  if  no  one  capable  of  understanding  could 
resist  the  convincing  cogency  of  the  following  exhi- 
bition of 


INTRODUCTION.  XXI 


THE  IDEA  OF  VICARIOUS  JUSTICE. 

It  is  only  natural  that  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son 
should  be  no  favorite  with  those  who  deny  the  unconditional 
mercy  of  God.  The  place  which  this  divine  tale  occupies  in 
the  Unitarian  theology  appears  to  be  filled,  in  the  orthodox 
scheme,  by  the  story  of  Zaleucus,  king  of  the  Locrians ; 
which  has  been  appealed  to  in  the  present  controversy  by 
both  the  lecturers  on  the  Atonement,  and  seems  to  be  the 
only  endurable  illustration  presented,  even  by  Pagan  history, 
of  the  execution  of  vicarious  punishment.  This  monarch 
had  passed  a  law  condemning  adulterers  to  the  loss  of  both 
eyes.  His  own  son  was  convicted  of  the  crime ;  and,  to  sat- 
isfy at  once  the  claims  of  law  and  of  clemency,  the  royal 
parent  "  commanded  one  of  his  own  eyes  to  be  pulled  out,  and 
one  of  his  son's."  Is  it  too  bold  a  heresy  to  confess  that 
there  seems  to  me  something  heathenish  in  this  example,  and 
that,  as  an  exponent  of  the  Divine  character,  I  more  willingly 
revere  the  Father  of  the  prodigal  than  the  father  of  the  adul- 
terer ? 

Without  entering,  however,  into  any  comparison  between 
the  Locrian  and  the  Galilean  parable,  I  would  observe,  that 
the  vicarious  theory  receives  no  illustration  from  this  frag- 
ment of  ancient  history.  There  is  no  analogy  between  the 
cases,  except  in  the  violation  of  truth  and  wisdom  which  both 
exhibit ;  and  whatever  we  are  instructed  to  admire  in  Za- 
leucus, will  be  found  on  close  inspection  to  be  absent  from  the 
orthodox  representation  of  God.  We  pity  the  Grecian  king, 
who  had  made  a  law  without  foresight  of  its  application,  and 
so  sympathize  with  his  desire  to  evade  it,  that  any  quibble 
which  legal  ingenuity  can  devise  for  this  purpose  passes  with 
slight  condemnation ;  casuistry  refuses  to  be  severe  with  a 
man  implicated  in  such  a  difficulty.  _But  the  Creator  and 
Legislator  of  the  human  race,  having  perfect  knowledge  of 
the  future,  can  never  be  surprised  into  a  similar  perplexity ; 
or  ever  pass  a  law  at  one  time  which  at  another  he  desires  to 


INTRODUCTION. 

evade.  Even  were  it  so,  there  would  seem  to  be  less  that  is 
unworthy  of  his  moral  perfection  in  saying  plainly,  with  the 
ancient  Hebrews,  that  he  "  repented  of  the  evil  he  thought 
to  do,"  and  said,  "  It  shall  not  be, "  than  in  ascribing  to  him  a 
device  for  preserving  consistency,  in  which  no  one  capable  of 
appreciating  veracity  can  pretend  to  discern  any  sincere  ful- 
filment of  the  law.  However  barbarous  the  idea  of  Divine 
"  repentance,"  it  is  at  least  ingenuous.  Nor  does  this  incident 
of  Zaleucus  and  his  son  present  any  parallel  to  the  alleged 
relation  between  the  Divine  Father  who  receives,  and  the 
Divine  Son  who  gives,  the  satisfaction  for  human  guilt.  The 
Locrian  king  took  a  part  of  the  penalty  himself,  and  left  the 
remainder  where  it  was  due  ;  but  the  Sovereign  Lawgiver 
of  Calvinism  puts  the  whole  upon  another.  To  sustain  the 
analogy,  Zaleucus  should  have  permitted  an  innocent  son  to 
have  both  his  eyes  put  out,  and  the  convicted  adulterer  to 
escape. 

The  doctrine  of  Atonement  has  introduced  among  Trinita- 
rians a  mode  of  speaking  respecting  God,  which  grates  most 
painfully  against  the  reverential  affections  due  to  him.  His 
nature  is  dismembered  into  a  number  of  attributes,  foreign  to 
each  other,  and  preferring  rival  claims  ;  the  Divine  tranquil- 
lity appears  as  ihg_equilibrium  of  opposing  pressures,  — _the 
Divine  administration  as  a  resultant  from  the  collision  of  hos- 
tile forces.  Goodness  pleads  for  that  which  holiness  forbids  ; 
and  the  Paternal  God  would  do  many  a  mercy,  did  the  Sov- 
ereign God  allow.  The  idea  of  a  conflict  or  embarrassment 
in  the  Supreme  Mind  being  thus  introduced,  and  the  believer 
being  haunted  by  the  feeling  of  some  tremendous  difficulty 
affecting  the  Infinite  government,  the  vicarious  economy  is 
brought  forward  as  the  relief,  the  solution  of  the  whole  per- 
plexity;  the  union,  by  a  blessed  compromise,  of  attributes 
that  could  never  combine  in  any  scheme  before.  The  main 
business  of  theology  is  made  to  consist  in  stating  the  condi- 
tions and  expounding  the  solution  of  this  imaginary  problem. 
The  cardinal  difficulty  is  thought  to  be  the  reconciliation  of 
justice  and  mercy  ;  and,  as  the  one  is  represented  under  the 


INTRODUCTION.  XX1U 

image  of  a  Sovereign,  the  other  under  that  of  a  Father,  the 
question  assumes  this  form  :  How  can  the  same  being  at  every 
moment  possess  both  these  characters,  without  abandoning 
any  function  or  feeling  appropriate  to  either  ?  how,  especially, 
can  the  Judge  remit  ?  —  it  is  beyond  his  power ;  yet  how  can 
the  Parent  punish  to  the  uttermost  ?  —  it  is  contrary  to  his 
nature. 

All  this  difficulty  is  merely  fictitious,  arising  out  of  the 
determination  to  make  out  that  God  is  both  wholly  Judge  and 
wholly  Father ;  from  an  anxiety,  that  is,  to  adhere  to  two 
metaphors,  as  applicable,  in  every  particular,  to  the  Divine 
Being.  It  is  evident  that  both  must  be,  to  a  great  extent,  in- 
appropriate ;  and  in  nothing,  surely,  is  the  impropriety  more 
manifest,  than  in  the  assertion  that,  as  sovereign,  God  is  nat- 
urally bound  to  execute  laws  which,  nevertheless,  it  would 
be  desirable  to  remit,  or  change  in  their  operation.  What- 
ever painful  necessities  the  imperfection  of  human  legislation 
and  judicial  procedure  may  impose,  the  Omniscient  Ruler 
can  make  no  law  which  he  will  not  to  all  eternity^  and  with' 
entire  consent  of  his  whole  nature,  deem  it  well  to  execute. 
This  is  the  Unitarian  answer  to  the  constant  question,  "  How 
can  God  forgive  in  defiance  of  his  own  law  ? "  It  is  not  in 
defiance  of  his  laws  :  every  one  of  which  will  be  fulfilled  to 
the  uttermost,  in  conformity  with  his  first  intent ;  but  nowhere 
has  he  declared  that  he  would  not  forgive.  AH  justice  con- 
sists in  treating  moral  agents  according  to  their  character; 
the  inexorability  of  human  law  arises  solely  from  the  imper- 
fection with  which  it  can  attain  this  end,  and  is  not  the  es- 
sence, but,  the  alloy  r  of  equity ;  but  God,  who  searches  and 
controls  the  heart,  exercises  that  perfect  justice,  which  per- 
mits the  penal  suffering  to  depart  only  with  the  moral  guilt ; 
and  pardons,  not  by  cancelling  any  sentence,  but  by  obeying 
his  eternal  purpose  to  meet  the  wanderer  returning  home- 
ward, and  give  his  blessing  to  the  restored.  Only  by  such 
restoration  can  any  past  guilt  be  effaced.  The  thoughts,  emo- 
tions, and  sufferings  of  sin,  once  committed,  are  woven  into 
the  fabric  of  the  soul ;  and  are  as  incapable  of  being  abso- 


XXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

lutely  obliterated  thence  and  put  back  into  non-existence,  as 
moments  of  being  struck  from  the  past,  or  the  parts  of  space 
from  infinitude.  Herein  we  _behold  alike  "  the  goodness  and 
the  severity  of  God  " ;  and  adore  in  him,  not  the  balance  of 
contrary  tendencies,  but  the  harmony  of  consentaneous  per- 
fections. How  plainly  does  experience  show  that,  if  his  per- 
sonal unity  be  given  up,  his  moral  unity  cannot  be  preserved ! 

The  author  himself  is  the  best  exemplification  of  the 
man  described  in  this  account  of  the 

DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  APPREHENSION  AND  INTERPRETATION. 

The  difference  between  thej>rdinary  visual  gaze  upon  the 
external  universe,  and  the  interpreting  glance  of  science,  is 
felt  by  every  cultivated  understanding  to  be  immeasurable  ;  — 
and  the  contrast  is  not  less  between  that  dull  sense  of  what 
passes  within  him,  which  is  forced  upon  a  man  by  mere 
practical  experience,  and  the  exact  consciousness,  the  discrim- 
inative perception,  the  easy  comprehension  of  his  own  (and, 
so  far  as  they  are  expressed  by  faithful  symbols,  of  others') 
states  and  affections,  possessed  by  the  patient  analyst  of 
thought  and  emotion,  and  careful  collector  of  their  laws.  The 
mighty  mass  of  human  achievement  and  human  failure,  in 
intellectual  research,  in  moral  endeavor,  in  social  economy 
and  government,  lapses  into  order  before  him,  and  distributes 
itself  among  the  provinces  of  determinate  laws.  The  struc- 
ture of  a  child's  perplexity,  and  the  fallacies  of  the  most  am- 
bitious hypothesis,  lie  open  to  him  as  readily,  as  to  the  artisan 
a  flaw  in  the  fabric  of  his  own  craft.  The  creations  of  art 
fall  before  him  into  their  elements  ;  and,  dissolving  away 
their  constitutent  matter,  which  is  an  accident  of  their  age, 
leave  upon  his  mind  their  permanent  form  of  beauty,  as  his 
guide  to  a  true  and  noble  criticism.  The  progress  and  the 
aberrations  of  human  reason,  in  its  quest  of  truth,  are  as 
clearly  appreciated  by  him,  as  the  passages  of  happy  skill  or 
ignorant  roving  in  some  voyage  of  discovery,  when  the  out- 


INTRODUCTION.  XXV 

lines  and  relations  of  the  sphere  on  which  it  is  made  become 
fully  known.  Discerning  distinctly  the  different  kinds  of 
gyidence  appropriate  to  Different  departments  of  truth,  and 
weighing  the  scientific  value  of  every  idea  and  method  of 
thought,  he  is  not  at  the  mercy  of  each  superficial  impression 
and  obtrusive  pha<e  presented  to  him  by  the  subjects  of  his 
contemplation ;  but  he  attains  a  certain  rational  tact  and 
graduated  feeling  of  certainty  in  abstract  matters  of  opinion, 
by  which  he  escapes  alike  the  miseries  of  undefined  doubj, 
and  the  passions  of  unqualified  dogmatism.  In  short,  the 
great  idea  of  Science  is  applied  by  him  to  the  complicated 
workings  of  the  mind  of  man  ;  interprets  the  activities  of  his 
nature,  and  gives  laws  to  the  administration  of  his  life  ;  and, 
with  wonderful  analysis,  investigates  the  properties,  and  estab- 
lishes the  equation,  of  their  most  labyrinthine  curves. 

What  a  rebuke  upon  dogmatic  sciolists,  what  a 
glorious  invitation  to  study,  are  conveyed  in  the 
genial,  broad,  mental  hospitality  of  the  succeeding  par- 
agraph ! 

NECESSITY  OF  LEARNING  IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

If  there  is  one  department  of  knowledge  more  than  another1"' 
in  which  a  contemptuous  disregard  of  the  meditations  and 
theories  of  distant  periods  and  nations  is  misplaced,  it  is  in 
the    philosophy   of    man,  —  which   can    have    no    adequate . 
breadth  of  basis  till  it  reposes  on  the  consciousness  and  covers 
the  mental  experience  of  the  universal  race  ;  and  to  construct ' 
which  out  of  purely  personal  materials,  is  like  attempting  to 
lay  down  the  curves  and  finish  the  theory  of  terrestrial  mag- 
netism on  the  strength  of  a  few  closet  experiments.     No  man, 
however  large-thoughted  and  composite  his  mind,  can  accept 
of  himself  as  the  type  of  universal  human  nature.     It  will 
even  be  a  great  and  rare  endowment,  if,  with  every  aid  of 
exact  learning  and  unwearying  patience,  he  is  able  to  pene- 
trate the  atmosphere  of  others'  understanding,  and  to  observe 
c 


XXVI  INTRODUCTION. 

the  forms  and  colors  which  the  objects  of  contemplation  as- 
~  sume,  when  beheld  through  this  peculiar  medium.  Simply  to 
avail  one's  self  of  the  experience  of  mankind,  and  know  what 
it  has  really  been,  demands  no  little  scope  of  imagination 
and  versatility  of  intellectual  sympathy.  When  these  quali- 
ties are  so  deficient  in  a  thinker  that  he  cannot  well  achieve 
this  knowledge,  it  is  a  great  misfortune  to  his  philosophy  ; 
when  the  want  is  such  that  he  does  not  even  desire  it,  it 
amounts  to  an  absolute  disqualification.  Without,  therefore, 
pledging  ourselves  to  the  eclectic  principles  which  prevail  in 
the  present  school  of  philosophy  in  France,  we  must  beware 
of  the  intolerant  dogmatism  of  Bentham  in  England,  sanc- 
tioned, as  we  have  seen,  by  one  of  the  masters  of  the  antago- 
nist metaphysics  in  Germany.  Indeed,  it  will  be  a  chief 
purpose  of  all  my  lectures  to  enable  you  to  profit  by  the  light 
of  other  minds ;  in  every  province  of  the  vast  region  which 
we  shall  explore  together,  to  indicate  the  paths  which  they 
have  traversed  before,  nor  ever^  to  turn  away  from  their 
points  of  discovery,  without  raising  some  rude  monument  at 
least  of  honest  and  commemorative  praise.  To  introduce  you 
to  the  works,  to  interpret  the  difficulties,  to  do  honor  to  the 
labors,  to  review  the  opinions,  of  the  great  masters  of  specula- 
lative  thought  in  every  age  and  in  many  lands,  will  be  an 
'"  indispensable  portion  of  my  duty ;  — (a  tasjk  most  arduous 
,  indeed,  but  than  which  none  can  be  more  grateful  to  one  who 
loves  to  trace,  through  all  their  affinities,  the  indestructible 
,  types  of  truth  and  beauty  in  the  human  mind ;  and  to  mark 
the  natural  laws,  connecting  together  the  most  opposite  conti- 
,  nents  and  climes  of  thought,  as  parts,  successively  colonized 
f  and  cultivated,  of  one  great  intellectual  world. "_  But  in  addi- 
tion to  the  study  of  the  several  classes  of  psychological  and 
moral  doctrine  as  they  present  themselves  in  the  order  of 
science,  it  will  be  important  to  spread  out  the  literature  of 
philosophy  before  us  in  the  order  of  time  ;  to  gain  an  insight 
into  the  natural  development  of  successive  modes  of  thought 
on  speculative  subjects  ;  to  notice  the  action  and  reaction  of 
philosophy  and  practical  life ;  to  ascertain  whether  opinion 


INTRODUCTION.  XXV11 

on  these  abstract  matters  really  advances  into  knowledge  and' 
has  any  determinate  progression,  or  whether  it  oscillates  for 
ever  on  either  side  of  some  fixed  idea,  or  line  of  mental  grav- 
itation. In  short,  having  surveyed  our  subject  systematically, 
we  shall  go  over  it  again  chronologically  ;  and  call  upon  phi- 
losophy, when  it  has  recited  its  creed,  and  revealed  its  wisdom, 
to  finish  all  by  writing  its  history. 

The  hints  given  in  Mr.  Martineau's  frequent  refer- 
ences to  the  bearing  of  scientific  knowledge  and  laws 
upon  theological  speculations  are  very  important.  We 
adduce  a  single  example. 

PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 

An  accomplished  and  thoughtful  observer  of  nature  — 
Hugh  Miller,  the  geologist  —  has  somewhere  remarked,  that 
religion  has  lost  its  dependence  on  metaphysical  theories,  and 
mu.st  henceforth  maintain  itself  upon  the  domain  of  physical 
science.  He  accordingly  exhorts  the  guardians  of  sacred 
truth  to  prepare  themselves  for  the  approaching  crisis  in  its 
history,  by  ^xchanging  the  study  of  thoughts  for__the  appre- 
hension of  things,  and  carefully  cultivating  the  habit  of  in- 
ductive research.  The  advice  is  excellent,  and  proceeds  from 
one  whose  own  example  has  amply  proved  its  worth;  and 
unless  the  clergy  qualify  themselves  to  take  part  in  the  dis- 
cussions which  open  themselves  with  the  advance  of  natural 
knowledge,  they  will  assuredly  be  neither  secure  in  their  per- 
sonal convictions  nor  faithful  to  their  public  trust.  The  only1* 
fault  to  be  found  with  this  counsel  is,  that  in  recommend h\« 
one  kind  of  knowledge  it  disparages  another,  and  betrays  that 
limited  intellectual  sympathy  which  is  the  bane  of  all  noble 
culture.  Geology,  astronomy,  chemistry,  so  far  from  succeed- 
ing to  the  inheritance  of  metaphysics,  do  but  enrich  its  prob- 
lems with  new  conceptions  and  give  a  larger  outline  to  its 
range ;  and  should  they,  in  the  wantonness  of  their  young 
ascendency,  persuade  men  to  its  neglect,  they  will  pay  the^ 


XXV111  INTRODUCTION. 

penalties  of  their  contempt  by  the  appearance  of  confusion  in 
their  own  doctrine.  The  advance  of  any  one  line  of  human 
thought  demands  —  especially  for  the  security  of  faith  —  the 
parallel  movement  of  all  the  rest;  and  the  attempt  to  substi- 
tute one  intellectual  reliance  for  another,  mistakes  for  progress 
of  knowledge  what  may  be  only  an  exchange  of  ignorance. 
In  particular,  the  study  of  external  nature  must  proceed  pari 
passu  with  the  study  of  the  human  mind ;  and  the  errors  of 
an  age  too  exclusively  reflective  will  not  be  remedied,  but 
only  reversed,  by  mere  reaction  into  sciences  of  outward  fact 
and  observation.  These  physical  pursuits,  followed  into  their 
further  haunts,  rapidly  run  up  into  a  series  of  notions  com- 
mon to  them  all,  —  expressed  by  such  words  as  Law,  Cause, 
Force,  —  which  at  once  transfer  the  jurisdiction  from  the 
'provincial  courts  of  the  special  sciences  to  the  high  chancery 
;  of  universal  philosophy.  To  conduct  the  pleadings  —  still 
more  to  pronounce  the  judgment — there,  other  habits  of 
mind  are  needed  than  are  required  in  the  museum  and  the 
observatory ;  and  the  history  of  knowledge,  past  and  present, 
abounds  with  instances  of  men  who,  with  the  highest  merit  in 
particular  walks  of  science,  have  combined  a  curious  incom- 
petency  of  survey  over  the  whole.  Hence,  very  few  natural 
philosophers,  however  eminent  for  great  discoveries  and 
dreaded  by  the  priesthood  of  their  day,  have  made  any  deep 
and  durable  impression  on  the  religious  conception  of  the 
universe,  as  the  product  and  expression  of  an  Infinite  Mind  ; 
and  in  tracing  the  eras  of  human  faith,  the  deep  thinker 
comes  more  prominently  into  view  than  the  skilful  interrogator 
of  nature.  In  the  history  of  religion,  Plato  is  a  greater  fig- 
ure than  Archimedes;  Spinoza  than  Newton;  Hume  and 
Kant  than  Volta  and  La  Place ;  even  Thomas  Carlyle  than 
Justus  Liebig.  Our  picture  indeed  of  the  system  of  things  is 
immensely  enlarged,  both  in  space  and  duration,  by  the  pro- 
gress of  descriptive  science ;  and  the  grouping  of  its  objects 
and  events  is  materially  changed.  But  the  altered  scene 
carries  with  it  the  same  expression  to  the  soul ;  speaks  the 
same  language  as  to  its  origin ;  renews  its  ancient  glance  with 


INTRODUCTION. 

an  auguster  beauty ;  and,  in  spite  of  all  dynamic  theories, 
reproduces  the  very  modes  of  faith  and  doubt  which  belonged 
to  the  age  both  of  the  old  Organon  and  of  the  new. 

The  ultimate  problem  of  all  philosophy  and  all  religion  is 
this :  "  How  are  we  to  conceive  aright  the  origin  and  first 
principle  of  things  ? "     The  answers,  it  has  been  contended 
by  a  living  author  of  distinguished  merit,  are  necessarily  re- 
ducible to  two,  between  which  all  systems  are  divided,  and  on 
the  decision  of  whose  controversy,  all  antagonist  speculations 
would  lay  down  their  arms.    "In  the  beginning  was  FORCE,"" 
says  one  class  of  thinkers  ;  "  force,  singular  or  plural,  split-    // 
ting  into  opposites,  standing  off  into  polarities,  ramifying  into       ^ 
attractions  and  repulsions,  heat  and  magnetism,  and  climbing 
through  the  stages  of  physical,  vital,  animal,  to  the  mental  _ 
life  itself."     "  On  the  contrary,"  says  the  other  class,  "  in  the 
beginning  was  THOUGHT  ;  and  only  in  the  necessary  eyolu-    /  »'• , 
tion  of  its  eternal  ideas  into  expression  does  force  arise,  —  self-      ,,  ' 
realizing  thought  declaring  itself  in  the  types  of  being  and 
the  laws  of  phenomena."      We   need  hardly  say,  that  the  ~  n 
former  of  these  two  notions  coalesces  with  the  creed  of  Athe- 
ism, and  is  most  frequently  met  with  upon  the  path  of  the 
physical  sciences,  while  the  latter  is  favored  by  the  mathe- 
matical and  metaphysical,  and  gives  the  essence  of  Pantheism. 
Each  of  them  has  insurmountable  difficulties,  with  which  it  is 
successfully  taunted  by  the  other.     Start  from  blind  force ; 
and  how,  by  any  spinning  from  that  solitary  centre,  are  we 
ever  to  arrive  at  the  seeing  intellect  ?     Can  the  lower  create 
the  higher,  and  the  unconscious  enable  us  to  think  ?     Start 
from  pure  thinking,  and  how  then  can  you  get  any  force  for 
the  production  of  objective  effects  ?     How  metamorphose  a 
passage  of  dialect  into  the  power  of  gravitation,  and  a  silent 
corollary  into  a  flash  of  lightning  ?     In  taking  the  intellect  as 
the  type  of  God,  this  difficulty  must  always  be  felt.     We  are 
well  aware  that  it  is  not  in  this  endowment  that  our  dynamic 
energy  resides.     The  activity  which  we  ascribe  to  our  intel- 
lect is  not  a  power  going  out  into  external  efficiency,  but  a 
mere  passage  across  the  internal  field  of  successive  thoughts 
c* 


INTRODUCTION. 

as  spontaneous  phenomena.  Nor  have  we,  as  thinking  beings 
only,  any  option  with  respect  to  the  thoughts  thus  streaming 
over  the  theatre  of  rational  consciousness ;  our  constitution 
legislates  for  us  in  this  particular,  and  the  order  of  sugges- 
tion is  determined  by  laws  having  their  seat  in  us.  Finally, 
we  are  not,  by  mere  thinking  capacity,  constituted  persons, 
any  more  than  a  sleeper  who  should  never  wake,  yet  always 
be  engaged  with  rational  and  scientific  dreams,  would  be  a 
person.  Without  some  further  endowment,  we  should  only 
be  a  logical  life  and  development.  All  these  characters  are 
imported  into  the  conception  of  God,  when  he  is  represented 
as  conforming  to  the  type  of  reason.  The  activity  of  intel- 
lect being  wholly  internal,  the  phenomena  of  the  Universe 
could  not  be  referred  to  Him  as  a  thinking  being,  were  they 
not  gathered  up  into  the  interior  of  his  nature,  and  con- 
ceived, not  as  objective  effects  of  his  power,  but  as  purely 
subjective  successions  within  the  theatre  of  his  infinitude. 
Intellect  again  having  no  option,  the  God  of  this  theory  is 
without  freedom,  and  is  represented  as  the  eternal  necessity 
of  reason.  And  lastly,  in  fidelity  to  the  same  analogy,  He 
is  not  a  divine  Person,  but  rather  a  Thinking  Thing,  or  the 
thinking  function  of  the  universe ;  we  may  say,  universal 
science  in  a  state  of  self -consciousness.  The  necessity  under 
which  Pantheism  lies,  of  fetching  all  that  is  to  be  referred  to 
God  into  the  interior  of  his  being,  and  dealing  with  it  as  not 
less  a  necessary  manifestation  of  his  mental  essence  than  are 
our  ideas  of  the  mind  that  has  them,  explains  the  unwilling- 
ness of  this  system  to  allow  any  motives  to  God,  any  field  of 
objective  operation,  any  special  relation  to  individuals,  any 
revealing  interposition,  any  supernatural  agency. 

Is  it  however  true,  that  human  belief  can  only  chooses 
between  these  two  extremes,  and  must  oscillate  eternally  be- 
tween the  Atheistic  homage  to  Force,  and  the  Pantheistic  to 
Thought  ?  Far  from  it ;  and  it  is  curiously  indicative  of  the 
state  of  the  philosophic  atmosphere  in  Germany,  that  one  of 
her  most  discerning  and  wide-seeing  authors  should  find  no 
third  possibility  within  the  sphere  of  vision.  In  any  latitude 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxi 

except  one  in  which  moral  science  has  altogether  melted 
away  in  the  universal  solvent  of  metaphysics,  it  would  occur 
as  one  of  the  most  obvious  suggestions,  that  the  intellect  is 
not  the  only  element  of  human  nature  which  may  be  taken 
as  type  of  the  Divine,  and  as  furnishing  a  possible  solution  to 
the  problem  of  origination.  Quitting  the  two  poles  of  ex- 
treme philosophy,  confessedly  incompetent  in  their  separation, 
we  submit  that  WILL  presents  the  middle  point  which  takes 
up  into  itself  Thought  on  the  one  hand  and  Force  on  the 
other ;  and  which  yet,  so  far  from  appearing  to  us  as  a  com- 
pound arising  out  of  them  as  an  effect,  is  more  easily  con- 
ceived than  either  as  the  originating  prefix  of  all  phenomena. 
It  has  none  of  the  disqualifications  which  we  have  remarked 
as  flowing  from  the  others  into  their  respective  systems  of 
doctrine.  It  carries  with  it,  in  its  very  idea,  the  co-presence 
of  Thought,  as  the  necessary  element  within  whose  sphere  it 
has  to  manifest  itself.  Its  phenomena  cannot  exist  alone  ;  it 
acts  on  preconceptions,  which  stand  related  to  it,  however,  not 
as  its  source,  but  as  its  conditions,  and  are  its  co-ordinates  in 
the  effect  rather  than  its  generating  antecedents.  If  there- 
fore all  things  are  issued  by  Will,  there  is  Mind  at  the  foun- 
tain-head, and  the  absurdity  is  avoided  of  deriving  intelli- 
gence from  unintelligence.  While  it  thus  escapes  the  diffi- 
culty of  passing  from  mere  Force  to  Thought,  it  is  equally 
clear  of  the  opposite  difficulty  of  making  mere  Thought  sup- 
ply any  Force.  The  activity  of  Will  is  not,  like  that  of  In- 
tellect, a  subjective,  transit  of  regimented  ideas,  but  an  object- 
ive power  going  out  for  the  production  of  effects ;  nay,  it  is 
fifree  power,  exercising  preference  among  data  furnished  by 
internal  or  external  conditions  present  in  its  field ;  and  it  thus 
constitutes  proper  Causality,  which  always  implies  control 
over  an  alternative.  We  need  hardly  add,  that  all  the  requi- 
sites are  thus  complete  for  the  true  idea  of  a  Person ;  and 
an  Infinite  Being  contemplated  under  this  type  is  neither  a 
fateful  nor  a  logical  principle  of  necessity,  but  a  living  God, 
out  of  whose  purposed  legislation  has  sprung  whatever  neces- 
sity there  is,  except  the  self-existent  beauty  of  his  holiness. 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION. 

Thus,  between  the  Force  of  the  physical  Atheist,  and  the 
Thought  of  the  metaphysical  Pantheist,  we  fix  upon  the  ful- 
crum of  Will  as  the  true  balance-point  of  a  moral  Theism. 

It  would  be  impossible,  perhaps,  to  find  anywhere  a 
finer  instance  of  perspicuity  in  condensation,  than  is 
given  in  the  following  reference  to 


LESSING'S  THEOLOGICAL  CONCLUSIONS. 

Lessing  refused  to  surrender  Christianity,  on  proof  of  error 
in  its  first  teachers,  uncertainty  in  its  reported  miracles,  con- 
tradictions in  its  early  literature,  misapplication  of  Messianic 
prophecies.  All  these  he  regards  as  but  the  external  acci- 
dents, the  transitory  media,  of  the  religion,  constituting,  it  may 
be,  its  support  in  one  age  and  its  weakness  in  another.  They 
do  not  belong  to  its  inner  essence,  in  which  alone  the  real 
evidence  of  spiritual  truth  is  found ;  and  he  who  detects  any- 
thing amiss  with  them  may  even  render  a  service  by  driving 
men  from  sham-proofs,  that  really  persuade  no  one,  to  true 
ones  that  lie  at  the  heart  of  things.  Religious  doctrine  can- 
not be  deduced  from  mere  historical  facts  without  a  pfTajBcuns 
dt  oXXo  yevos  vitiating  the  whole  process,  facts  indeed  may 
become  the  proper  ground  of  moral  and  spiritual  faith ;  but 
then  they  must  be  facts  which  come  over  again  and  again, 
and  betray  an  element  that  is  permanent  and  eternal ;  which 
form  part  of  the  experience  and  consciousness  of  humanity  ; 
and  ally  themselves  with  the  Divine  by  not  losing  their  pres- 
ence in  the  world.  But  unrepeated  facts,  which  limit  them- 
selves to  a  moment,  which  are  the  incidents  of  a  single 
personality,  and  are  left  behind  quite  insulated  in  the  past, 
show — were  it  only  by  vour  not  expecting  them  again  — 
that  they  are  detached  from  the  persistent  and  essential  life 
of  the  universe  and  humanity.  They  are  but  once  and 
away ;  and  least  of  all,  therefore,  can  testify  of  the  un  transi- 
tory and  ever-living.  The  real  can  teach  us  only  so  far  as  it 


INTRODUCTION. 

has  an  ideal  kernel,  redeeming  it  from  the  character  of  a 
solitary  phenomenon.  Among  the  various  expositions  and 
applications  of  this  favorite  theme  of  Lessing's,  we  select  the 
following  sentences  from  his  Axiomata. 

1.  "The  Bible  evidently  contains  more  than  belongs  to 
Religion." 

2.  "  That  in  this  '  more '  the  Bible  is  still  infallible,  is  mere 
hypothesis." 

3.  "  The  letter  is  not  the  spirit,  and  the  Bible  is  not  the 
Religion." 

4.  "  The  objections  therefore  against  the  letter  and  against 
the  Bible,  are  not  on  that  account  objections  against  the  spirit 
and  against  the  Religion." 

5.  "  Moreover  there  was  a  religion  ere  there  was  a  Bible." 

6.  "  Christianity  was  in  being  before  Evangelists  and  Apos- 
tles had  written.     Some  time  elapsed  before  the  first  of  them 
wrote,  and  a  very  considerable  time  before  the  whole  canon 
was  constituted." 

7.  "  However  much,  therefore,  may  depend  on  these  writ- 
ings, it  is  impossible  that  the  whole  truth  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion can  rest  upon  them." 

8.  "If  there  was  a  period  during  which,  diffused  as  the 
Christian  religion  already  was,  and  many  as  were  the  souls 
filled  already  with  its  power,  still  not  a  letter  had  yet  been 
written  of  the  records  which  have  come  down  to  us  ;  then  it 
must  be  also  possible  for  all  the  writings  of  Evangelists  and 
Apostles  to  perish,  yet  the  religion  taught  by  them  still  to 
subsist." 

9.  "  The  religion  is  not  true  because  Evangelists  and  Apos- 
tles taught  it ;  but  they  taught  it  because  it  is  true." 

10.  "  Its  interior  truth  must  furnish  the  interpretation  of  the 
writings  it  has  handed  down ;  and  no  writings  handed  down 
can  give  it  interior  truth,  if  it  has  none." 

In  his  controversy  with  Goze,  he  illustrates  this  distinction 
between  the  essence  and  the  historical  form  of  Christianity, 
by  a  parable  to  the  following  effect.  A  wise  king  of  a  great 
realm  built  a  palace  of  immense  size  and  very  peculiar  archi- 


XXXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

tecture.  About  this  structure,  there  came  from  the  very  first 
a  foolish  strife  to  be  carried  on,  especially  among  reputed 
connoisseurs,  people,  that  is,  who  had  least  looked  into  the  in- 
terior. This  strife  was  not  about  the  palace  itself,  but  about 
various  old  ground-plans  of  it,  and  drawings  of  the  same, 
very  difficult  to  make  out.  Once,  when  the  watchmen  cried 
out  "  Fire,"  these  connoisseurs,  instead  of  running  to  help, 
snatched  up  their  plans,  and,  instead  of  putting  out  the  fire  on 
the  spot,  kept  standing  with  their  plans  in  hand,  making  a 
hubbub  all  the  while,  and  squabbling  about  whether  this  was 
the  spot  on  fire,  and  that  the  place  to  put  it  out.  Happily, 
the  safety  of  the  palace  did  not  depend  on  these  busy  wran- 
glers, ifbr  it  was  not  on  fire  at  all;  the  watchmen  had  been 
frightened  by  the  Northern  lights,  and  mistaken  them  for 
fire.  It  is  impossible  to  convey  by  a  clearer  image  Lessing's 
feeling,  that  a  Christianity  once  incorporated  in  the  very  sub- 
stance of  history  and  civilization,  seated  deep  in  human  sen- 
timent and  thought,  and  developed  into  literature,  law,  and 
life,  subsists  independently  of  critical  questions,  and  is  witli 
us,  not  as  the  contingent  vapor  that  a  wind  may  rise  to  blow 
away,  but  as  the  cloud  that  has  dropped  its  rain  and  mingled 
with  the  roots  of  things.  •*"•  T  ^  i 

::Cr'.>*l.^.~':  "'•*" 

In  immediate  contrast  with  the  foregoing  application 
of  a  critical  method  to  the  historic  documents  of 
Christianity,  it  is  beautiful  to  see  the  same  genius 
turned  with  eager  joy  to  a  practical  recommendation 
of  the  experimental  life  of  Christianity. 


THE  REDEEMING  LAW  OF  SYMPATHY. 

It  is  quite  true,  that  self-cure  is  of  all  things  the  most  ar- 
duous ;  but  that  which  is  impossible  to  the  man  wit/tin  us,  may 
be  altogether  possible  to  the  God.  In  truth,  the  denial  of 
such  changes,  under  the  affectation  of  great  knowledge  of 
man,  shows  an  incredible  ignorance  of  men.  Why,  the  his- 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXV 

tory  of  every  great  religious  revolution,  such  as  the  spread  of 
Methodism,  is  made  up  of  nothing  else ;  the  instances  occur- 
ring in  such  number  and  variety,  as  to  transform  the  character 
of  whole  districts  and  vast  populations,  and  to  put  all  scepti- 
cism at  utter  defiance.  And  if  some  more  philosophic  au- 
thority is  needed  for  the  fact,  we  may  be  content  with  the 
sanction  of  Lord  Bacon,  who  observed  that  a  man  reforms 
his  habits  either  altogether  or  not  at  all.  Deterioration  of 
mind  is  indeed  always  gradual ;  recovery  usually  sudden ;  for 
God,  by  a  mystery  of  mercy,  has  established  this  distinction 
in  our  secret  nature,  —  that,  while  we  cannot,  by  one  dark 
plunge,  sympathize  with  guilt  far  beneath  us,  but  gaze  at  it 
with  recoil  till  intermediate  shades  have  rendered  the  degra- 
dation tolerable,  we  are  yet  capable  of  sympathizing  with 
moral  excellence  and  beauty  infinitely  above  us ;  so  that, 
while  the  debased  may  shudder  and  sicken  at  even  the  true 
picture  of  themselves,  they  can  feel  the  silent  majesty  of  self- 
denying  and  disinterested  duty.  With  a  demon  can  no  man 
feel  complacency,  though  the  demon  be  himself;  but  God  can 
all  spirits  reverence,  though  his  holiness  be  an  infinite  deep. 
And  thus  the  soul,  privately  uneasy  at  its  insincere  state,  is 
prepared,  when  vividly  presented  with  some  sublime  object 
veiled  before,  to  be  pierced,  as  by  a  flash  from  heaven,  with 
an  instant  veneration,  sometimes  intense  enough  to  fuse  the 
fetters  of  habit,  and  drop  them  to  the  earth  whence  they  were 
forged.  The  mind  is  ready,  like  a  liquid  on  the  eve  of  crys-  ' 
tallization,  to  yield  up  its  state  on  the  touch  of  the  first  sharp 
point,  and  dart,  over  its  surface  and  in  its  depths,  into  bril- 
liant and  beautiful  forms,  and  from  being  turbid  and  weak  as 
water,  to  become  clear  as  crystal,  and  solid  as  the  rock. 

One  of  the  most  elaborate  and  valuable  productions 
from  Mr.  Martineau's  pen,  an  article  closely  allied  in 
all  respects  to  the  ensuing  Studies  of  Christianity,  is 
the  one  of  some  portions  of  which  we  herewith  pre- 
sent an  epitome. 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  MORAL  EVIL. 

The  Divine  sentiments  towards  right  and  wrong  every  man 
naturally  believes  to  be  a  reflection  of  whatever  is  most  pure 

i  and  solemn  in  his  own."  We  cannot  be  sincerely  persuaded, 
that  God  looks  with  aversion  on  dispositions  which  we  revere 
as  good  and  noble ;  or  that  he  regards  with  lax  indifference 
the  selfish  and  criminal  passions  which  awaken  our  own  dis- 
N  gust.  We  may  well  suppose,  indeed,  his  scrutiny  more 
searching,  his  estimate  more  severely  time,  his  rebuking  look 
more  awful,  than  our  self-examination  and  remorse  can  fitly 

,  represent;  but  we  cannot  doubt  that  our  moral  emotions,  as 
far  as  they  go,  are  in  sympathy  with  his  ;  that  we  know,  by 
our  own  consciousness,  the  general  direction  of  his  approval 
and  displeasure ;  and  that,  in  proportion  as  our  perceptions 
of  duty  are  rendered  clear,  our  judgment  more  nearly  ap- 
proaches the  precision  of  the  Omniscient  award.  Our  own 
conscience  is  the  window  of  heaven  through  which  we  gaze 
on  God ;  and,  as  its  colors  perpetually  change,  his  aspect 
changes  too ;  —  if  they  are  bright  and  fair,  he  dwells  as  in  the 
warm  light  of  a  rejoicing  love  ;  if  they  are  dark  and  turbid,  he 
hides  himself  in  robes  of  cloud  and  storm.  When  you  have 
lost  your  self-respect,  you  have  never  thought  yourself  an 
object  of  Divine  complacency.  In  moments  fresh  from  sin, 
flushed  with  the  shame  of  an  insulted  mind,  when  you  have 
broken  another  resolve,  or  turned  your  back  upon  a  noble 
toil,  or  succumbed  to  a  mean  passion,  or  lapsed  into  the  sick- 
ness of  self-indulgence,  could  you  ever  turn  a  clear  and  open 
face  to  God,  nor  think  it  terrible  to  meet  his  eye  ?  Could 
you  imagine  yourself  in  congeniality  with  him,  when  you 
gave  yourself  up  to  the  voluble  sophistry  of  self-excuse,  and 
the  loose  hurry  of  forgetfulness  ?  Or  did  you  not  discern  him 
rather  in  your  own  accusing  heart,  and  meet  him  in  the  silent 
anguish  of  full  confession,  and  find  in  the  recognition  of  your 
alienation  the  first  hope  of  return  ?  To  all  unperverted 

\  minds,  the  verdict  of  conscience  sounds  with  a  preternatural 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXVU 

voice  ;  it  is  not  the  homely  talk  of  their  own  poor  judgment,v 
but  an  oracle  of  the  sanctuary.  There  is  something  of  anti- 
cipation in  our  remorse,  as  well  as  of  retrospect ;  and  we  feel 
that  it  is  not  the  mere  survey  of  a  gloomy  past  with  the  slow 
lamp  of  our  understanding,  but  a  momentary  piercing  of  the 
future  with  the  vivid  lightning  of  the  skies.  Our  moral  nature, 
left  to  itself,  intuitively  believes  that  guilt  is  an  estrangement 
from  God, —  an  unqualified  opposition  to  his  will,  —  a  literal 
service  of  the  enemy ;  that  he  abhors  it,  and  will  give  it  no 
rest  till  it  is  driven  from  his  presence,  that  is,  into  anni- 
hilation ;  that  no  part  of  our  mind  belongs  to  him  but  the  pure, 
and  just,  and  disinterested  affections  which  he  fosters,  the 
faithful  will  which  he  strengthens,  the  virtue,  often  damped, 
whose  smoking  flax  he  will  not  quench,  and  the  good  re- 
solves, ever  frail,  whose  bruised  reed  he  will  not  break  ;  and 
that  he  has  no  relation  but  of  displeasure,  no  contact  but  of 
resistance,  with  our  selfishness  and  sin.  In  the  simple  faith  of 
the  conscience  it  is  no  figure  of  speech  to  say,  that  God  "  is 
angry  with  the  wicked  every  day,"  and  is  "of  purer  eyes 
than  to  behold  iniquity."  So  long  as  the  natural  religion 
of  the  heart  is  undisturbed,  to  sin  is,  in  the  plainest  and 
most  positive  sense,  to  set  up  against  Heaven,  and  frustrate 
its  will. 

Soon,  however,  the  understanding  disturbs  the  tranquillity  i 
of  this  belief,  and  constructs  a  rival  creed.     The  primitive 
conception  of  God  is  acquired,  I  believe,  without  reasoning, 
and  emerges  from  the  affections ;  it  is  a  transcript  of  our  own  . 
emotions,  —  an  investiture  of  them  with  external  personality 
and  infinite  magnitude.     But  a  secondary  idea  of  Deity  arises 
in  the  intellect,  from  its  reasonings  about  causation.     Curi- 
osity is  felt  respecting  the  origin  of  things ;  and  the  order, 
beauty,   and   mechanism   of  external   nature   are   too   con- 
spicuous not  to  force  upon  the  observation  the  conviction  of  , 
a  great   Architect   of  the   universe,  from  whose  designing 
reason  its  forces  and  its  laws  mysteriously  sprung.     Hence 
the  intellectual  conception  of  God  the   Creator,  which  comes 
into  inevitable  collision  with  the  moral  notion  of  God  the  holy 
d 


XXXV111  INTRODUCTION. 

'  watch  of  virtue.  For  if  the  system  of  creation  is  the  pro- 
duction of  his  Omniscience  ;  if  he  has  constituted  human 
nature  as  it  is,  and  placed  it  in  the  scene  whereon  it  acts  ;  if 
the  arrangements  by  which  happiness  is  allotted,  and  char- 
acter is  formed,  are  the  contrivance  of  his  thought  and  the 
work  of  his  hand,  —  then  the  sufferings  and  the  guilt  of  every 
being  were  objects  of  his  original  contemplation,  and  the 
productions  of  his  own  design.  The  deed  of  crime  must,  in 
this  case,  be  as  much  an  integral  part  of  his  Providence,  as 
the  efforts  and  sacrifices  of  virtue  ;  and  thejnonsters  of  licen- 
tiousness  and  tyranny,  whose  images  deform  the  scenery  of 
history,  are  no  less  truly  his  appointed  instruments,  than  the 

/  martyr  and  the  sage.''  And  though  we  remain  convinced  that 
he  does  not  make  choice  of  evil  in  his  government  for  its 
own  sake,  but  only  for  ultimate  ends  worthy  of  his  per- 
fections, still  we  can  no  longer  see  how  he  can  truly  hate  that 
which  he  employs  for  the  production  of  good.  That  which  is 

'  his  chosen  instrument  cannot  be  sincerely  regarded  as  his 
everlasting  enemy ;  and  only  figuratively  can  he  be  said  to 

1  repudiate  a  power  which  he  continually  wields.  There  must 
be  some  sense  in  which  it  appears,  in  the  eye  of  Omniscience, 
to  be  eligible ;  some  point  of  view  at  which  its  horrors 
vanish ;  and  where  the  moral  distinctions,  which  we  feel 
ourselves  impelled  to  venerate,  disappear  from  the  regards 

I  of  God. 

Here,  then,  is  a  fearful^  contradiction  between  the  religion 

i  of  conscience  and  the  religion  of  the  understanding*;  the  one 
pronouncing  evil  to  be  the  antagonist,  the  other  to  be  the 
agent,  of  the  Divine  will.  In  every  age  has  this  difficulty 
laid  a  heavy  weight  upon  the  human  heart ;  in  every  age  has 
it  pointed  the  sarcasm  of  the  blasphemer,  mingled  an  occa- 
sional sadness  with  the  hopes  of  benevolence,  and  tinged  the 
devotion  of  the  thoughtful  with  a  somewhat  melancholy  trust. 
The  whole  history  of  speculative  religion  is  one  prolonged 
effort  of  the  human  mind  to  destroy  this  contrariety ;  system 
after  system  has  been  born  in  the  struggle  to  cast  the  op- 
pression off,  —  with  what  result,  it  will  be  my  object  at  present 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXIX 

to  explain.  The  question  which  we  have  to  consider  is  this, 
"How  should  a  Christian  think  of  the  origin  and  existence  of 
evil  ?  "  I  propose  to  advert,  first,  to  the  speculative  ;  secondly, 
to  the  scriptural ;  thirdly,  to  the  moral  relations  of  the  sub- 
ject ;  to  inquire  what  relief  we  can  obtain  from  philosophical 
schemes,  from  biblical  doctrine,  and  from  practical  Chris- 
tianity. 

•  •  •  • 

Let  us  then,  for  final  decision,  consult  the  practical  spirit 
of  Christianity,  and  ascertain  to  what  view  of  the  origin  of 
sin  it  awards  the  preference.  Is  it  well  for  the  consciences 
and  characters  of  men,  to  consider  God  —  either  directly  or 
through  his  dependant,  Satan,  either  by  his  general  laws 
or  by  vitiating  the  constitution  of  our  first  parents  —  as  the 
primary  source  of  moral  evil  ?  or,  on  the  contrary,  to  regard 
it  as  in  no  sense  whatever  willed  by  the  Supreme  Mind,  and 
absolutely  inimical  to  his  Providence  ?  Are  we  most  in  har- 
mony with  the  characteristic  spirit  of  the  Gospel  when  we 
call  sin  his  instrument,  or  when  we  call  it  his  enemy  ?  For 
myself,  I  can  never  sit  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and  yield  up  a 
reverential  heart  to  his  great  lessons,  without  casting  myself 
on  the  persuasion,  that  God  and  evil  are  everlasting  foes ; 
that  never,  and  for  no  end,  did  he  create  it ;  that  his  will  is 
utterly  against  it,  nor  ever  touches  it,  but  with  annihilating 
force."  Any  other  view  appears  to  be  injurious  to  the  charac- 
teristic sentiments,  and  at  variance  with  the  distinguishing 
genius,  of  Christian  morality. 

(1.)  Christianity  is  distinguished  by  the  profound  senti- 
ment of  individual  responsibility  which  pervades  it.  All  the 
arbitrary  forms,  and  sacerdotal  interpositions,  and  hereditary 
rights,  through  which  other  systems  seek  the  Divine  favor, 
are  disowned  by  it.  It  is  a  religion  eminently  personal ;  es- 
tablishing the  most  intimate  and  solitary  dealings  between 
God  and  every  human  soul.  It  is  a  religion  eminently 
natural;  eradicating  no  indigenous  affection  of  our  mind, 
distorting  no  primitive  moral  sentiment;  but  simply  conse- 
crating the  obligations  proper  to  our  nature,  and  taking  up 


Xl  INTRODUCTION. 

1  with  a  divine  voice  the  whispers,  scarce  articulate  before,  of 
the  conscience  within  us.  In  this  deep  harmony  with  our 
inmost  consciousness  of  duty  resides  the  true  power  of  our 

,  religion.  It  subdues  and  governs  our  hearts,  as  a  wise  con- 
queror rules  the  empire  he  has  won ;  not  by  imposing  a  sys- 
tem of  strange  laws,  but  by  arming  with  higher  authority, 
and  administering  with  more  resolute  precision,  the  laws 
already  recognized  and  revered. 

To  trifle  in  any  way  with  this  plain  and  solemn  principle, 
to  invent  forms  of  speech  tending  to  conceal  it,  to  apply  to 
moral  good  and  ill  language  which  assimilates  them  to  phys- 
ical objects  and  exchangeable  property,  implies  frivolous  and 
1  irreverent  ideas  of  sin  and  excellence.  The  whole  weight 
of  this  charge  evidently  faUs  on  the  scheme  which  speaks  of 
human  guilt  as  an  hereditary  entail ;  a  scheme  which  shocks 
and  confounds  our  primary  notion  of  right  and  wrong,  and, 
by  rendering  them  impersonal  qualities,  reduces  them  to 
empty  names.  No  construction  can  be  given  to  the  system, 
which  does  not  pass  this  insult  on  the  conscience.  In  what 
sense  do  we  share  the  guilt  of  our  progenitor  ?  His  conces- 
sion to  temptation  did  not  occur  within  our  mind,  or  belong 
in  any  way  to  our  history.  And  if,  without  participation  in 
the  act  of  wrong,  we  are  to  have  its  penalties,  crimes  in 
the  planet  Saturn  may  be  expected  to  shower  curses  on  the 
earth ;  for  why  may  not  justice  go  astray  in  space,  as  rea- 
sonably as  in  tune  ?  If  nothing  more  be  meant,  than  that 
from  our  first  parents  we  inherit  a  constitution  liable  to  in- 
tellectual error  and  moral  transgression,  —  still  it  is  evident 
that,  until  this  liability  takes  actual  effect,  no  sin  exists,  but 
only  its  possibility ;  and  when  it  takes  effect,  there  is  just  so 
much  guilt,  and  no  more,  than  might  be  committed  by  the 
individual's  will:  so  that  where  there  is  no  volition,  as  in 
infancy,  cruelty  only  could  inflict  punishment ;  and  where 
there  is  pure  volition,  as  in  many  a  good  passage  of  the 
foulest  life,  equity  itself  could  not  withhold  approval. 

(2.)  I  submit  as  a  second  distinguishing  feature  of  practical 
Christianity,  tliat  it  makes  no  great,  certainly  no  exclusive, 


INTRODUCTION,  xli 

appeal  to  the  prudential  feelings,  as  instruments  of  duty ; 
treats  them  as  morally  incapable  of  so  sacred  a  work ;  and 
relies,  chiefly  and  characteristically,  on  affections  of  the  heart, 
which  no  motives  of  reward  and  punishment  can  have  the 
smallest  tendency  to  excite. 

The  Gospel,  indeed,  like  all  things  divine,  is  unsystematic 
and  unbound  by  technical  distinctions,  and  makes  no  meta- 
physical separation  between  the  will  and  the  affections.  It  is 
too  profoundly  adapted  to  our  nature,  not  to  address  itself 
copiously  to  both.  The  doctrine  of  retribution,  being  a  solemn 
truth,  appears  with  all  its  native  force  in  the  teachings  of 
Christ,  and  arms  many  of  his  appeals  with  a  persuasion  just 
and  terrible.  But  never  was  there  a  religion  (containing 
these  motives  at  all)  so  frugal  in  the  use  of  them ;  so  able,  on 
fit  occasions,  to  dispense  with  them ;  so  rich  in  those  inimiN 
able  touches  of  moral  beauty,  and  tones  that  penetrate  the 
conscience,  and  generous  trust  in  the  better  sympathies,  which 
distinguish  a  morality  of  the  affections.  In  Christ  himself, 
where  is  there  a  trace  of  the  obedience  of  pious  self-interest, 
computing  its  everlasting  gains,  and  making  out  a  case  for 
compensation,  by  submitting  to  infinite  wisdom  ?  In  his 
character,  which  is  the  impersonation  of  his  religion,  we  surely 
have  a  perfect  image  of  spontaneous  goodness,  unhaunted  by 
the  idea  of  personal  enjoyment,  and,  like  that  of  God,  un- 
bidden but  by  the  intuitions  of  conscience  and  the  impulses 
of  love.  And  what  teacher  less  divine  ever  made  such  high 
and  bold  demands  on  our  disinterestedness  ?  To  lend  out  our 
virtue  upon  interest,  to  "love  them  only  who  love  us,"  he 
pronounced  to  be  the  sinners'  morality  ;  nor  was  the  feeling  of 
duty  ever  reached,  but  by  those  who  could  "  do  good,  hoping 
for  nothing  again,"  except  that  greatest  of  rewards  to  a  true 
and  faithful  heart,  to  be  "  the  children  of  the  Highest,"  who 
"  is  kind  unto  the  unthankful  and  the  evil."  In  the  view  of 
Jesus,  all  dealings  between  God  and  jnen  were  not  of  bargain, 
but  of  affection.  We  must  surrender  ourselves  to  him  with- 


out terms  ;  must  be  ashamed  to  doubt  him  who  feeds  the  birds 
of  the  air,  and,  like  the  lily  of  the  field,  look  up  to  him  with  a 

d* 


Xlii  INTRODUCTION. 

bright  and  loving  eye ;  and  he,  for  our  much  love,  will  pity 
and  forgive  us.  In  his  own  ministry,  how  much  less  did  our 
Lord  rely  for  disciples  on  the  cogency  of  mere  proof,  and  the 
inducements  of  hope  and  fear,  than  on  the  power  of  moral 
sympathy,  by  which  every  one  that  was  of  God  naturally 
loved  him  and  heard  his  words ;  by  which  the  good  shepherd 
knew  his  sheep,  and  they  listened  to  his  voice,  and  followed 
him ;  and  without  which  no  man  could  come  unto  him,  for 
no  spirit  of  the  Father  drew  him.  No  condition  of  disci- 
pleship  did  Christ  impose,  save  that  of  "  faith  in  him " ; 
absolute  trust  in  the  spirit  of  his  mind ;  a  desire  of  self- 
abandonment  to  a  love  and  fidelity  like  his,  without  tamper- 
ing with  expediency,  or  hesitancy  in  peril,  or  shrinking 
from  death. 

There  is,  then,  a  wide  variance  between  the  genius  of 
Christianity,  and  that  philosophy  which  teaches  that  all  men 
v.  must  be  bought  over  to  the  side  of  goodness  and  of  God,  by 
a  price  suited  to  their  particular  form  of  selfishness  and  ap- 
petite for  pleasure.  Our  religion  is  remarkable  for  the  large 
'  confidence  it  reposes  on  the  disinterested  affections,  and  the 
vast  proportion  of  the  work  of  life  it  consigns  to  them.  And 
,  in  thus  seeking  to  subordinate  and  tranquillize  the  prudential 
feelings,  Christ  manifested  how  well  he  knew  what  was  in 
man.  He  recognized  the  truth,  which  all  experience  declares, 
that  in  these  emotions  is  nothing  great,  nothing  lovable,  noth- 
ing powerful ;  that  their  energy  is  perpetually  found  inca- 
pable of  withstanding  the  impetuosity  of  passion;  and  that 
all  transcendent  virtues,  all  that  brings  us  to  tremble  or  to 
kneel,  all  the  enterprises  and  conflicts  which  dignify  history, 
and  have  stamped  any  new  feature  on  human  life,  have  had 
their  origin  in  the  disinterested  region  of  the  mind,  —  in  affec- 
tions unconsciously  entranced  by  some  object  sanctifying  and 
divine.  He  knew,  for  it  was  his  special  mission  to  make  all 
men  feel,  that  it  is  the  office  of  true  religion  to  cleanse  the 
sanctuary  of  the  secret  affections,  and  effect  a  regeneration 
of  the  heart.  And  this  is  a  task  which  no  direct  nisus  of  the 
will  can  possibly  accomplish,  and  to  which,  therefore,  all 


INTRODUCTION.  xliii 

•s 

offers  of  reward  and  punishment,  operating  only  on  the  will,v 
are  quite  inapplicable.     The  single  function  of  volition  is  to  • 
act  ;  over  the  executive  part  of  our  nature  it  is  supreme,  over 
the  emotional  it  is  powerless  ;  and  all  the  wrestlings  of  desire  . 
for  self-cure  and  self-elevation,  are  like  the  struggles  of  a  child 
to  lift  himself.     He  who  is  anxious  to  be  a  philanthropist,  is 
admiring  benevolence,  instead  of  loving  men  ;  and  whoever  is  ' 
laboring  to  warm  his  devotions,  yearns  after  piety,  not  after 
God.     The  mind  can  by  no  spasmodic  bound  seize  on  a  new  | 
height  of  emotion,  or  change  the  light  in  which  objects  appear 
before  its  view.   "Persuade  the  judgment,  bribe  the  self-in-  , 
terests,  terrify  the  expectations,  as  you  will,  you  can  neither 
dislodge  a  favorite,  nor  enthrone  a  stranger,  in  the  heart/ 
Show  me  a  child  that  flings  an  affectionate  arm  around  a 
parent,  and  lights  up  his  eyes  beneath  her  face,  and  I  know 
that  there  have  been  no  lectures  there  upon  filial  love ;  but 
that  the  mother,  being  lovable,  has  of  necessity  been  loved ;  for 
to  genial  minds  it  is  as  impossible  to  withhold  a  pure  affec- 
tion, when  its  object  is  presented,  as  for  the  flower  to  sulk 
within  the  mould,  and  clasp  itself  tight  within  the  bud,  when 
the  gentle  force  of  spring  invites  its  petals  to  curl  out  into 
the  warm  light.     As  you  reverence  all  good  affections  of  our 
nature,  and  desire  to  awaken  them,  never  call  them  duties, 
though  they  be  so ;  for  so  doing,  you  address  yourself  to  the 
will ;  and  by  hard  trying  no    attachment  ever  entered  the 
heart.     Never  preach  on  their  great  desirableness  and  pro- 
priety ;  for  so  doing,  you  ask  audience  of  the  judgment ;  and 
by  way  of  the  understanding  no  glow  of  noble  passion  ever 
came.     Never,  above  all,  reckon  up  their  balance  of  good 
and  ill ;  for  so  doing,  you  exhort  self-interest ;  and  by  that ' 
soiled  way  no  true  love  will  consent  to  pass.     Nay,  never 
talk  of  them,  nor  even  gaze  curiously  at  them ;  for  if  they 
be  of  any  worth  and  delicacy,  they  will  be  instantly  looked 
out  of  countenance  and  fly.    .Njothing  worthy  qfjiuman _ ven- 
eration will  condescend  to  be  embraced,  but  for  its  own  sake : 
grasp  it  for  its  excellent  results,  —  make  but  the  faintest  offer 
to  use  it  as  a  tool,  and  it  slips  away  at  the  very  conception  of 


INTRODUCTION. 

such  insult.  The  functions  of  a  healthy  body  go  on,  not  by 
knowledge  of  physiology,  but  by  the  instinctive  vigor  of 
nature  ;  and  you  will  no  more  brace  the  spiritual  faculties  to 
noble  energy  and  true  life  by  study  of  the  uses  of  every 
feeling,  than  you  can  train  an  athlete  for  the  race  by  lectures 
on  every  muscle  of  every  limb.  The  mind  is  not  voluntarily 
active  in  the  acquisition  of  any  great  idea,  any  new  inspira- 
tion of  faith;  but  passive,  fixed  on  the  object  which  has 
dawned  upon  it,  and  filled  it  with  fresh  light. 

If  this  be  true,  and  if  it  be  the  object  of  practical  Chris- 
tianity, not  only  to  direct  our  hands  aright,  but  to  inspire  our 
hearts,  then  can  its  ends  never  be  achieved  by  the  mere  force 
of  reward  and  punishment ;  then  no  system  can  prove  its 
sufficiency  by  showing  that  it  retains  the  doctrine  of  retribu- 
tion, and  must  even  be  held  convicted  of  moral  incompetency, 
if  it  trusts  the  conscience  mainly  to  the  prudential  feelings, 
without  due  provision  for  enlisting  the  co-operation  of  many 
a  disinterested  affection. 

We  cannot  refrain  from  affording  those  into  whose 
hands  this  volume  will  go,  the  pleasure  and  the  lofty 
encouragement  which  they  must  derive  from  the  peru- 
sal of  an  extract  ou 


THE  TRANSMISSION  OF   SUPERIOR  THOUGHTS. 

It  is  a  law  of  Providence  in  communities,  that  ideas  shall 
be  propagated  downwards  through  the  several  gradations  of 
minds.  They  have  their  origin  in  the  suggestions  of  genius, 
and  the  meditations  of  philosophy ;  they  are  assimilated  by 
those  who  can  admire  what  is  great  and  true,  but  cannot 
originate  ;  and  thence  they  are  slowly  infused  into  the  popu- 
lar mind.  The  rapidity  of  the  process  may  vary  in  different 
times,  with  the  facilities  for  the  transmission  of  thought,  but 
its  order  is  constant.  Temporary  causes  may  shield  the 
inferior  ranks  of  intelligence  from  the  influence  of  the  supe- 


INTRODUCTION.  xv 

rior ;  fanaticism  may  interpose  for  a  while  with  success  ;  a 
want  of  the  true  spirit  of  sympathy  between  the  instructors 
and  the  instructed  may  check  by  a  moral  repulsion  the 
natural  radiation  of  intellect ;  —  but,  in  the  end,  Providence 
will  re-assert  its  rule ;  and  the  conceptions  born  in  the  quiet 
heights  of  contemplation  will  precipitate  themselves  on  the 
busy  multitudes  below.  This  principle  interprets  history  and 
presages  futurity.  It  shows  us  in  the  popular  feeling  and 
traditions  of  one  age,  a  reflection  from  the  philosophy  of  a 
preceding ;  and  from  the  prevailing  style  of  sentiment  and 
speculation  among  the  cultivated  classes  now,  it  enables  us  to 
foresee  the  spirit  of  a  coming  age.  Nor  only  to  foresee  it,  but 
to  exercise  over  it  a  power,  in  the  use  of  which  there  is  a 
grave  responsibility.  If  we  are  far-sighted  in  our  views  of 
improvement ;  if  we  are  ambitious  less  of  immediate  and 
superficial  effects  than  of  the  final  and  deep-seated  agency 
of  generous  and  holy  principles  ;  if  our  love  of  opinions  is  a 
genuine  expression  of  the  disinterested  love  of  truth  ;  —  we 
shall  remember  who  are  the  teachers  of  futurity  ;  we  shall 
appeal  to  those,  within  whose  closete J]rod  is  already  comput- 
ingjhe  destinies  of  remote  generations, — men  at  once  erudite 
and  free,  men  who  have  the  materials  of  knowledge  with 
which  to  determine  the  great  problems  of  morals  and  religion, 
and  the  genius  to  think  and  imagine  and  feel,  without  let  or 
hinderance  of  hope  or  fear. 

We  linger  over  the  pages  from  which  the  preceding 
selections  have  been  made,  unwilling  to  end  our 
grateful  task  of  love.  But  one  quotation  more  must 
he  the  last.  With  it  we  commend  these  Studies  of 
Christianity,  these  timely  thoughts  for  religious  think- 
ers, to  the  candid  and  affectionate  inquirers  within  all 
sects,  confident  that,  so  far  as  the  work  obtains  a  fit 
reception,  it  will  exert  that  purifying,  liberalizing,  and 
sanctifying  power  which  is  the  genuine  influence  of 
Christ. 


xlvi  INTRODUCTION. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND   SECTARIAN  THEOLOGY. 

The  sectarian  state  of  theology  in  this  country  cannot  but 
be  regarded  as  eminently  unnatural.  Its  cold  and  hard  min- 
istrations are  entirely  alien  to  the  wants  of  the  popular  mind, 
which,  except  under  the  discipline  of  artificial  influences,  is 
always  most  awake  to  generous  impressions.  Its  malignant 
exclusiveness  is  a  perversion  of  the  natural  veneration  of  the 
human  heart,  which,  except  where  it  is  interfered  with  by 
narrow  and  selfish  systems,  pours  itself  out,  not  in  hatred 
towards  anything  that  lives,  but  in  love  to  the  invisible  ob- 
jects of  trust  and  hope.  Its  disputatious  trifling  is  an  insult 
to  the  sanctity  of  conscience,  which,  except  where  it  is 
betrayed  into  oblivion  of  its  delicate  and  holy  office,  suppli- 
cates of  religion,  not  a  new  ferocity  of  dogmatism,  but  an 
enlargement  and  refinement  of  its  sense  of  right.  It  is  the 
temper  of  sectarianism  to  seize  on  every  deformity  of  every 
creed,  and  exhibit  this  caricature  to  the  world's  gaze  and 
aversion.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  soul's  natural  piety  to  alight 
on  whatever  is  beautiful  and  touching  in  every  faith,  and 
take  there  its  secret  draught  of  pure  and  fresh  emotion.  It  is 
the  passages  of  poetry  and  pathos  in  a  system,  which  alone 
can  lay  a  strong  hold  on  the  general  mind  and  give  them 
permanence  ;  and  even  the  wild  fictions  which  have  endeared 
Romanism  to  the  hearts  of  so  many  centuries,  possess  their 
elements  of  tenderness  and  magnificence.  The  fundamental 
principle  of  one  who  would  administer  religion  to  the  minds 
of  his  fellow-men  should  be,  that  all  that  has  ever  been 
extensively  venerated  must  possess  ingredients  that  are  ven- 
erable. If,  in  the  spirit  of  sectarianism,  he  sees  nothing  in  it 
but  absurdity,  it  only  proves  that  he  does  not  see  it  all ;  it 
must  have  an  aspect,  which  he  has  not  yet  caught,  that 
awes  the  imagination,  or  touches  the  affections,  or  moves  the 
conscience  ;  and  those  who  receive  it  neither  will  nor  should 
abandon  it,  till  something  is  substituted,  not  only  more  con- 
sonant with  the  reason,  but  more  awakening  to  these  higher 


INTRODUCTION. 

faculties  of  soul.  Hence,  a  rigid  accuracy  and  logical  pene- 
tration of  mind,  the  power  of  detecting  and  exposing  error, 
are  not  the  only  qualities  needed  by  the  religious  reformer  ; 
and  in  a  deep  and  reverential  sympathy  with  human  feelings, 
a  quick  perception  of  the  great  and  beautiful,  a  promptitude 
to  cast  himself  into  the  minds  of  others,  and  gaze  through 
their  eyes  at  the  objects  which  they  love,  he  will  find  the 
instrument  of  the  sublimest  intellectual  power.  The  precise 
logician  may  sit  eternally  hi  the  centre  of  his  own  circle  of 
correct  ideas,  and  preach  demonstrably  the  folly  of  the 
world's  superstitions  ;  yet  he  will  never  affect  the  thoughts  of 
any  but  marble-minded  beings  like  himself.  He  disregards 
the  fine  tissue  of  emotions  that  clings  round  the  objects  which 
he  so  harshly  handles ;  and  has  yet  to  learn  the  art  of  pre- 
serving its  fabric  unimpaired,  while  he  enfolds  within  it  some- 
thing more  worthy  for  it  to  foster  and  adore. 

As,  then,  it  is  to  the  moral  and  imaginative  powers  of  the 
human  mind  that  religion  chiefly  attaches  itself,  as  it  is  by 
these  that  the  want  of  it  is  most  strongly  felt,  so  is  it  to  these 
that  its  ministrations  should  be,  for  the  most  part,  addressed. 
While  theologians  are  discussing  the  evidences  of  creeds,  let 
teachers  be  conducting  them  to  their  applications.  Let  their 
respective  resources  of  feeling  and  conception  be  unfolded 
before  the  soul  of  mankind ;  let  it  be  tried  what  mental  en- 
ergy they  can  inspire,  what  purity  of  moral  perception  infuse, 
what  dignity  of  principle  erect,  what  toils  of  philanthropy 
sustain.  Thus  would  arise  a  new  criterion  of  judgment  be- 
tween differing  systems ;  for  that  system  must  possess  most 
truth  which  creates  the  most  intelligence  and  virtue.  Thus 
would  the  deeper  devotional  wants  of  society  be  no  longer 
mocked  by  the  privilege  of  choice  among  a  few  captious, 
verbal,  and  precise  forms  of  belief.  Thus,  too,  would  the 
alienation  which  repels  sect  from  sect  give  place  to  an  incip- 
ient and  growing  sympathy ;  for  when  high  intellect  and 
excellence  approach  and  stand  in  meek  homage  beneath  the 
cross,  how  soon  are  the  jarring  voices  of  disputants  hushed  in 
the  stillness  of  reverence !  Who  does  not  feel  the  refresh- 


Xlviii  INTRODUCTION. 

ment,  when  some  stream  of  pure  poetry,  like  Heber's,  winds 
into  the  desert  of  theology !  when  some  flash  of  genius,  like 
that  of  Chalmers,  darts  through  its  dull  atmosphere  !  some 
strains  of  eloquence,  like  those  of  Channing,  float  from  a  dis- 
tance on  its  heavy  silence  ! 

Such,  then,  are  the  objects  which  should  be  contemplated 
by  those  who,  in  the  present  times,  aim  at  the  reformation  of 
religious  sentiment ;  —  first,  the  elevation  of  theology  as  an 
intellectual  pursuit ;  secondly,  the  better  application  of  re- 
ligion as  a  moral  influence.  Both  these  objects  are  directly 
or  indirectly  promoted  by  the  Association  whose  cause  I  am 
privileged  to  advocate.  It  aids  the  first,  by  the  distribution 
of  many  a  work,  the  production  of  such  minds  as  must  redeem 
theology  from  contempt.  It  advances  the  second,  by  estab- 
lishing union  and  sympathy  among  those  whose  first  princi- 
ples are  in  direct  contradiction  to  all  that  is  sectarian,  and  who 
desire  only  to  emancipate  the  understanding  from  all  that  en- 
feebles, and  the  heart  from  all  that  narrows  it.  The  triumph 
of  its  doctrines  would  be,  not  the  ascendency  of  one  sect,  but 
the  harmony  of  all.  Let  but  the  diversities  which  separate 
Christians  retire,  and  the  truths  which  they  all  profess  to  love 
advance  to  prominence,  and,  whatever  may  become  of  party 
names,  our  aims  are  fulfilled,  and  our  satisfaction  is  complete. 
When  faith  in  the  paternity  of  God  shall  have  kindled  an 
affectionate  and  lofty  devotion ;  when  the  vision  of  immor- 
tality, imparted  by  Christ's  resurrection,  shall  have  created 
that  spirit  of  duty  which  was  the  holiest  inspiration  of  his 
life ;  when  the  sincere  recognition  of  human  brotherhood  shall 
have  supplanted  all  exclusive  institutions,  and  banded  society 
together  under  the  vow  of  mutual  aid  and  the  hope  of  ever- 
lasting progress,  our  work  will  be  done,  our  reward  before 
us,  and  our  little  community  of  reformers  lost  in  the  wide 
fraternity  of  enlightened  and  benevolent  men. 

The  day  is  yet  distant,  and  can  be  won  only  by  the  toil  of 
earnest  and  faithful  minds.  In  the  mean  while,  it  is  no  light 
solace  to  see  that  the  tendencies  of  Providence  are  towards 
its  accelerated  approach.  And  however  dispiriting  may 


INTRODUCTION. 

sometimes  be  the  variety  and  conflicts  of  human  sentiment, — 
however  remote  the  dissonance  of  controversy  from  that  har- 
mony of  will  which  would  seem  essential  to  perfected  society, 
it  is  through  this  very  process  that  the  great  ends  of  improve- 
ment are  to  be  attained.  Hereafter  it  will  be  seen,  much 
more  clearly  than  we  can  see  it  now,  that  opinion  generates 
knowledge.  Like  the  ethereal  waves,  whose  inconceivable 
rapidity  and  number  are  said  to  impart  the  sensation  of  vis- 
ion, the  undulations  of  opinion  are  speeding  on  to  produce 
the  perception  of  truth.  They  are  the  infinitely  complex  and 
delicate  movements  of  that  universal  Human  Mind,  whose 
quiescence  is  darkness,  —  whose  agitation,  light. 

To  the  fit  and  numerous  readers  whom  we  trust 
they  will  find,  these  papers  are  now  submitted,  in  the 
earnest  hope  that  the  author  will  at  no  distant  day 
follow  them  with  some  more  systematic  and  rounded 
survey  of  the  same  great  subject,  —  the  components 
and  developments  of  Christianity. 

W.  R.  A. 


STUDIES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 


DISTINCTIVE  TYPES  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


IF  unity  be  the  character  of  truth,  no  generation  was  ever 
so  far  gone  in  errors  as  our  own :  nor  is  the  weariness  sur- 
prising, with  which  statesmen  and  philosophers  turn  away 
from  the  Babel  of  Divinity,  and,  in  despair  of  scaling  the 
heavens,  apply  themselves  to  found  and  adorn  the  politics  of 
this  world.  But  the  confusion  of  tongues  is  too  positive  and 
obtrusive  a  fact  to  be  escaped  by  mere  retreat :  it  bids  defi- 
ance to  polite  evasion :  it  pursues  life  into  every  public  place 
and  private  haunt;  invades  the  home,  the  school,  the  college, 
the  court,  the  legislature ;  and,  besides  the  problems  which  it 
fails  to  solve,  constitutes  in  itself  a  new  one,  not  undeserving 
the  closest  study  and  reflection.  To  the  believers  in  doctrinal 
finality,  who  imagine  the  whole  sacred  economy  to  be  settled 
by  a  documentary  revelation,  the  reopening  of  every  question, 
down  to  the  very  basis  of  religious  faith,  must  be  an  appalling 
phenomenon,  charging  either  failure  on  the  presumed  designs 
of  God  or  a  traitorous  perversity  on  even  the  most  gifted  and 
upright  of  men.  And  not  a  whit  better  is  the  conclusion  of  a 
conceited  illuminism,  which,  either  boldly  recalling  the  human 
mind  to  the  sciences  of  induction,  despises  all  faith  as  false 
alike ;  or,  conscious  at  least  of  its  own  incompetency,  pleases 
itself  with  a  more  indulgent  scepticism,  and  accepts  them  all 
as  true.  If  no  better  revenge  can  be  taken  on  pious  dogma- 
tism than  by  falling  into  the  cant  of  an  eclectic  neutrality  or 
an  impious  despair,  there  is  little  encouragement  for  any  high- 
1 


2  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

minded  man  to  take  part  against  the  bigotries  of  the  present 
on  behalf  of  sickly  negations  in  the  future.  The  world  is  bet- 
ter left  in  the  hands  of  the  poorest  interpreter  of  Paul,  and 
most  degenerate  heirs  of  Augustine  and  Pascal,  than  trans- 
ferred to  the  dialectic  of  Proclus  or  the  materialism  of  the  liv- 
ing "  Fondateur  de  la  Religion  deTHumanite"*  There  are 
those,  however,  who  deny  that  we  are  left  to  any  such  alter- 
native ;  who  cannot  conceive  that  human  aspirations  after 
divine  reality  shall  for  ever  pine  and  sigh  in  vain ;  who  con- 
tend that  objective  truth  in  reference  to  morals  and  religion 
is  attainable,  and  has  been  largely  attained ;  —  and  who,  ac- 
cordingly, despairing  of  neither  philosophy  nor  Christianity, 
require  only  the  free  intercommunion  of  the  two  to  appreciate 
the  contradictions  of  the  present  without  foregoing  the  hope 
of  greater  unity  in  the  future.  The  controversies  of  the  hour 
are  but  ill  understood  by  one  who  remains  enclosed  within 
them,  and  judges  them  only  on  their  own  assumptions.  Like 
a  village  brawl,  which,  with  only  the  sound  of  vulgar  noise, 
may  be  the  ripe  fruit  of  oppression  and  the  germ  of  revolu- 
tion, they  have  an  assigned  place  in  the  unfolding  of  modern 
civilization ;  and  not  till  their  place  is  computed  in  the  life  of 
the  human  race,  and  the  law  which  brings  them  up  in  our  age 
is  observed,  can  their  real  significance  be  apprehended,  and 
all  anger  at  their  clamorous  littleness  be  lost  in  hope  of  their 
ulterior  issues.  Regarded  from  this  higher  point,  the  surface 
of  religious  belief  in  England,  at  first  sight  a  mere  troubled 
fermentation  of  struggling  elements,  betrays  some  organic 
principle  of  order,  and  many  salient  points  of  promise. 

We  hazard  no  theory  of  religion  in  saying  that  there  is  a 
natural  correspondence  between  the  genius  of  a  people  and 
the  form  of  their  belief.  Each  mood  of  mind  brings  its  own 
wants  and  aspirations,  colors  its  own  ideal,  and  interprets  best 
that  part  of  life  and  the  universe  with  which  it  is  in  sympa- 
thy. John  Knox  would  have  been  misplaced  in  Athens,  and 


*  The  title  which  Auguste  Comte  gives  himself  in  his  "  Catechisme  Posi- 
tiviste."  ~  Preface,  p.  xl. 


DISTINCTIVE   TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  3 

Tauler  could  not  have  lived  on  the  moralism  of  Kant.  No 
doubt  the  ultimate  seat  of  human  faith  lies  deep  down  below 
the  special  propensities  of  individuals  or  tribes,  —  in  a  con- 
sciousness and  faculty  common  to  the  race.  But  ere  it  comes 
to  the  surface,  and  disengages  itself  in  a  concrete  shape,  its 
type  and  color  will  be  affected  by  the  strata  of  thought  and 
feeling  through  which  it  emerges  into  the  light.  Without  pre- 
tending to  an  exhaustive  classification,  we  find  four  chief  tem- 
peraments of  mind  expressed  in  the  theologies  and  scepticisms 
of  civilized  Europe :  the  quest  of  physical  order,  the  sense 
of  right,  the  instinct  of  beauty,  and  the  consciousness  of  tem- 
pestuous impulses  carrying  the  will  off  its  feet.  Variously 
blended  in  the  characters  of  average  persons,  these  tendencies 
are  liable  to  separate  their  intensities,  and  severally  dominate 
almost  alone  in  minds  of  great  force  and  periods  of  special 
action  or  reaction.  Were  each  left  to  itself  to  form  its  own 
unaided  creed,  the  doctrine  of  mere  Science  would  be  atheis- 
tic ;  of  Conscience,  theistic ;  of  Art,  pantheistic ;  of  Passion, 
sacrificial.  The  evidence  of  this  distribution  of  tendencies  is 
equally  conclusive,  whether  we  look  to  its  rational  ground  or 
to  its  historical  exemplification ;  and  a  few  words  on  each 
head  will  suffice  to  clear  and  justify  it. 

Notwithstanding  some  occasional  attempts  to  exhibit  natu- 
ral theology  as  a  necessary  extension  of  natural  philosophy,  it 
is  plain  that  the  maxims,  which  are  ultimate  for  physical  Sci- 
ence, stop  short  of  contact  with  Religion ;  that  the  final  appeal 
of  the  two  is  carried  to  different  faculties ;  and  that  the  scope 
and  sphere  of  the  one  may  be  complete  without  borrowing  any 
conception  from  the  other.  The  assumption,  for  instance,  that 
"  we  can  know  nothing  but  phenomena"  directly  excludes  all 
permanent  and  eternal  Being  as  the  possible  object  of  rational 
thought.  And  as  "phenomena"  are  apprehensible  only  by 
the  observing  faculties,  whatever  refuses  to  put  in  an  appear- 
ance in  their  court  is  nonsuited  as  an  unreality.  And  again, 
physical  knowledge  has  accomplished  its  aim,  as  soon  as  it  can 
predict  all  the  successions  that  lie  within  its  field  of  time  and 
space ;  and  nowhere  in  this  system  of  series,  nor  in  the  calcu- 


4  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

lated  forces  which  yield  it  to  the  view,  does  any  divine  Person 
look  in  upon  the  mind.  Whoever,  by  the  restraints  of  a  hypo- 
thetical necessity,  detains  his  intellect  within  nature,  debars 
himself  ipso  facto  from  any  faith  that  transcends  nature,  and 
recognizes  no  reserve  of  supernatural  possibilities,  hidden  in  a 
Mind  of  which  the  actual  universe  is  but  the  finite  expression. 
We  do  not,  of  course,  intend  to  affirm  that  scientific  culture 
cannot  coexist  with  religious  belief;  —  so  preposterous  an  as- 
sertion would  be  confuted  by  a  manifold  experience ;  —  but 
only  that,  where  the  canons  of  inductive  knowledge  are  in- 
vested with  unconditional  universality,  and  are  logically  car- 
ried out  as  valid  for  all  thought,  they  shut  the  door  upon  the 
sources  of  faith.  It  is  the  old  battle,  of  which  history  supplies 
such  abundant  illustration ;  which  brought  Parmenides  and 
Protagoras  upon  the  lists  at  opposite  ends  on  the  field  of  phi- 
losophy ;  which  Bacon  profoundly  avoided  by  assigning  sepa- 
rate empires,  without  common  boundary,  to  science  and  relig- 
ion ;  but  which  his  modern  disciples  have  rashly  renewed,  by 
invading  the  realm  left  sacred  by  him.  Uneasy  relations 
have  always  subsisted  in  Christendom  between  the  investiga- 
tors of  nature  and  the  trustees  of  the  faith  :  the  men  of  science 
rarely  quitting,  unless  for  signs  of  unequivocal  aversion,  the 
attitude  of  polite  indifference  to  the  Church ;  and  in  their  turn 
watched  with  the  jealous  eye  of  sacerdotal  vigilance.  It  is  no 
untrue  instinct  that  has  hitherto  maintained  them  in  this  pos- 
ture of  mutual  suspicion :  to  exchange  which  for  a  hearty  and 
intelligent  reverence  for  each  other  is  an  achievement  re- 
served for  a  higher  philosophy  than  we  yet  possess. 

As  Science  pays  homage  to  the  force  of  nature,  so  Con- 
science enthrones  the  law  of  right.  The  conscious  subject  of 
moral  obligation  feels  himself  under  a  rule  neither  self-im- 
posed and  fictitious,  nor  foreign  and  coercive ;  —  neither  a 
home  invention  nor  an  outward  necessity ;  —  a  rule  invisible, 
authoritative,  awful ;  carrying  with  it  an  alternative  irreduci- 
ble to  the  linear  dynamics  of  the  physical  world  ;  incapable  of 
being  felt  but  by  a  free  mind,  or  of  being  given  but  by  an- 
other. He  is  aware  that  his  will  follows  a  call  of  duty  not  at 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPKS    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  0 

all  as  his  body  adapts  itself  to  the  force  of  gravitation  ;  and  as 
within  him  the  conscientious  obedience  wholly  differs  from  the 
corporeal,  so  in  the  universe  of  realities  beyond  him  does  the 
moral  legislation  diifer  from  the  natural,  and  express  the  will 
of  a  person,  not  a  mere  constitution  of  things.  No  ethical 
conceptions  are  possible  at  all,  —  except  as  floating  shreds  of 
unattached  thought,  —  without  a  religious  background ;  and 
the  sense  of  responsibility,  the  agony  of  shame,  the  inner  rev- 
erence for  justice,  first  find  their  meaning  and  vindication  in  a 
supreme  holiness  that  rules  the  world.  Nor  can  any  one  be 
penetrated  with  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  with- 
out recognizing  it  as  valid  for  all  free  beings,  and  incapable  of 
local  or  arbitrary  change.  His  feeling  insists  on  its  perma- 
nent recognition  and  omnipresent  sway ;  and  this  unity  in  the 
Moral  Law  carries  him  to  the  unity  of  the  Divine  Legislator. 
Theism  is  thus  the  indispensable  postulate  of  conscience,  — 
its  objective  counterpart  and  justification,  without  which  its 
inspirations  would  be  illusions,  and  its  veracities  themselves  a 
lie.  To  adduce  historical  proofs  of  this  conjunction  is  at  once 
difficult  and  superfluous  in  a  world  whose  theism  is  almost  all 
of  one  stock.  But  it  will  not  be  forgotten  that  Socrates,  in 
whom  Greek  religion  culminated,  avowedly  based  his  reform 
on  the  substitution  of  moral  for  physical  studies.  It  is  unde- 
niable too  that,  in  spite  of  their  fatalism,  the  monotheistic  Mo- 
hammedans have  been  surpassed  by  few  nations  in  their  sense 
of  truth  and  fidelity ;  and  that  wherever  the  same  type  of  be- 
lief has  been  approached  by  Christian  sects,  the  heresy  has 
been  said  to  arise  from  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  moral 
law. 

Art,  we  have  said,  is  pantheistic.  Its  aim,  often  uncon- 
sciously present,  is  to  read  off  the  expressiveness  of  things, 
and  find  what  it  is  which  they  would  speak  with  their  silent 
look.  To  its  perceptions,  form,  color,  sound,  motion,  have 
a  soul  within  them  whose  life  and  activity  they  represent : 
and  even  language,  by  flinging  itself  into  the  mould  of  rhythm 
and  music,  acquires,  beyond  its  logical  significance,  a  second 
meaning  for  the  affections.  As  if  waked  up  and  tingling  be- 
1* 


6  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

neath  the  artist's  loving  gaze,  matter  lies  dull  and  dead  no 
more ;  opens  on  him  a  responding  eye ;  communes  with  him 
from  its  steadfast  brow ;  and  becomes  instinct  with  grace  or 
majesty.  Instead  of  being  the  drag-weight  and  opposite  of 
spiritual  energies,  it  becomes  to  him  their  pliant  medium,  the 
docile  clay  for  the  shapes  of  finest  thought,  the  brilliant  pal- 
ette for  the  spread  of  inmost  feeling.  He  melts  the  barrier 
away  that  hides  from  mere  sense  and  intellect  the  interior 
sentiment  —  the  formative  idea  —  of  all  visible  things ;  and 
his  glance  of  sympathy  changes  them  not  less  than  a  burst  of 
amber  sunrise  changes  a  leaden  landscape  and  picks  out  the 
freshest  smiles.  Thus  he  finds  himself  in  a  living  universe, 
ever  striving  to  show  him  a  divine  beauty  that  lurks  within 
and  presses  to  the  surface ;  and  he  stands  before  a  curtain 
only  half  opaque,  watching  the  lights  and  shadows  thrown  on 
it  from  behind  by  the  ceaseless  play  of  infinite  thought.  Not 
that  the  interpretation  is  by  any  means  self-evident,  or  acces- 
sible except  to  the  apprehensive  instinct  of  sympathy.  For 
it  seems  as  though  no  form  of  being,  no  object  in  creation, 
could  ever  represent  completely  its  own  type :  something  is 
lost  from  its  perfection  in  the  realization;  and  the  actual, 
falling  short  of  the  ideal,  can  give  it  only  to  one  for  whom  a 
hint  suffices.  This  conception  of  the  world  as  an  incarnate 
divineness  does  not,  we  are  well  aware,  amount  to  pantheism, 
unless  it  become  all-comprehensive,  so  as  to  take  in  not  simply 
physical  nature,  but  the  human  life  and  will ;  and  there  are 
numbers  who  are  saved  from  this  extreme,  either  by  knowing 
where  to  draw  the  lines  of  philosophical  distinction,  or  by  the 
natural  force  of  moral  conviction  restraining  the  absolutism  of 
imagination.  But  so  far  forth  as  the  tendency  operates,  it 
substitutes  for  the  theistic  reverence  for  a  Holy  Witt  the  pan- 
theistic recognition  of  a  Creative  Beauty,  and  presents  God 
to  the  mind  less  as  the  prototype  of  Conscience  than  as  the 
apotheosis  of  Genius.  The  spontaneity  of  poetic  action  is 
supposed  to  illustrate  His  procedure  better  than  the  preferen- 
tial decisions  of  the  moral  sentiment;  and  the  genesis  of  what- 
ever is  good  and  fair  is  referred  not  sp  much  to  deliberate 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  7 

plan  as  to  the  eternal  interfusion  and  circulation,  through  the 
great  whole,  of  a  Divine  Essence,  which  flings  off  the  universe 
and  its  history  as  a  mere  natural  language.  That  this  is  the 
religion  of  art,  is  proved  by  the  literature  of  every  creative  pe- 
riod, Greek,  Italian,  or  Teutonic ;  and  negatively  by  the  com- 
parative absence  of  artistic  feeling  and  production  in  ages  and 
nations  that  have  most  intensified  at  once  the  Unity  and  the 
Personality  of  God.  Beauty  was  the  Bible  of  Athens ;  and 
Plato,  its  devoutest  and  most  comprehensive  expounder,  shows 
everywhere,  in  his  metaphysics,  his  morals,  and  his  myths,  the 
mould  into  which  its  faith  inevitably  falls. 

In  passionate  and  impulsive  natures  there  is  a  self-contra- 
diction which  makes  their  religious  tendency  peculiarly  diffi- 
cult to  describe.  They  are  not  less  conscious  than  others  of 
moral  distinctions,  and  own  the  sacred  authority  of  the  better 
invitation  over  the  worse.  Indeed,  when  surprised  into  a 
fall,  their  remorse  shares  the  vehemence  of  all  their  emotions, 
and  from  the  black  shadow  in  which  they  sit,  the  sanctity  of 
the  law  which  they  have  violated  looks  ineffably  bright ;  and 
they  speak  of  its  holy  requirements,  and  of  the  infinite  purity 
of  the  Divine  Legislator,  in  such  fervid  tone,  that  whatever 
else  they  may  endanger,  the  perfection  of  God's  character, 
you  feel  assured,  and  the  obligations  of  human  morality,  are 
secure  of  reverential  maintenance.  Yet  the  truth  is  precisely 
the  reverse.  At  the  very  moment  that  the  law  of  duty  is 
thus  loftily  extolled,  it  is  on  the  point  of  total  subversion ;  lift- 
ed to  a  height  precarious  and  unreal,  it  overbalances  on  the 
other  side  and  disappears.  For  the  very  same  stormy  inten- 
sity which  makes  these  men  strong  to  feel  the  claim  of  good, 
makes  them  weak  to  obey  it.  Their  personality  wants  solid- 
ity ;  and  an  atmosphere  of  tempestuous  affections  sweeps  over 
it  like  a  hurricane  on  water.  They  can  do  nothing  from  out 
of  their  own  resolves,  and  are  for  ever  drawn  or  driven  from 
the  fortress  they  were  not  to  surrender.  What  remains  for 
them,  solicited  thus  by  forces  which  are  an  overmatch  for  their 
just  self-reliance  ?  Is  it  surprising  that  they  no  sooner  confess 
how  they  ought  to  obey,  than  they  declare  that  they  cannot 


8  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHKISTIANITT. 

obey  ?  The  thing  is  a  contradiction  ;  but  it  all  the  better  for 
this  expresses  what  they  are :  with  their  centre  of  gravity  in 
the  wrong  place,  they  cannot  but  hold  the  truth  in  unstable 
equilibrium.  Repose  on  contradiction  is,  however,  impossi- 
ble ;  and  the  necessary  result  of  these  co-existent  feelings  of 
obligation  and  incapacity  is  a  substitute  for  obedience.  The 
resort  to  sacrifice  which  thus  arose  expressed  no  more,  prior 
to  the  Christian  era,  than  the  sentiment,  "  Take  this,  O 
Lord,  't  is  all  I  have  to  give  ";  and  afforded  but  a  fictitious  re- 
lief to  the  laboring  spirit.  It  acknowledged  and  attested  the 
incompetency  of  the  will,  but  made  no  use  of  the  excess  of 
the  emotions.  It  was  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  faith  which  first 
turned  this  great  power  to  account;  and  virtually  said,  "Are 
you  in  slavery  because  you  cannot  manage  your  affections  ? 
turn  their  trust  and  enthusiasm  on  Christ  in  heaven,  and  let 
them  manage  you,  and  you  shall  be  free."  The  soul  that  falls 
in  love  with  immortal  goodness  rises  above  the  region  of  in- 
effectual strife,  and  spontaneously  offers  what  could  never  be 
extorted  from  the  will  by  the  lash  of  self-mortifying  resolve. 
This  is  the  truth  which  underlies  the  sacrificial  doctrine  in 
Christian  times,  —  the  emancipating  power  of  great  trusts  and 
high  inspirations  ;  and  its  very  nature  indicates  its  birth  from 
impassioned  temperaments,  and  its  affinity  with  their  special 
wants.  The  vicarious  sacrifice  is  a  mere  plea,  an  ideal  point 
of  attraction,  for  a  profound  allegiance  of  heart ;  which  minds 
of  this  class  would  hardly  yield  without  an  intense  appeal  to 
their  gratitude  ;  but  which,  if  really  awakened  by  a  clear  and 
tranquil  moral  reverence,  would  no  less  triumph  over  the 
gravitation  of  self.  The  one  needful  condition  for  the  re- 
demption of  these  natures  is  the  objective  presence  and  action 
upon  them  of  a  divine  person  to  lift  them  clear  out  of  them- 
selves, and  render  back  on  the  healing  breath  of  trust  the 
strength  that  only  pants  itself  away  in  feverish  effort.  Every 
doctrine  of  sacrifice  necessarily  contradicts  its  own  premises  ; 
because  for  guilt,  which  is  personal  and  inalienable,  it  offers 
a  compensation  which  is  foreign,  and  meets  a  moral  ill  with 
an  unmoral  remedy.  True  and  sound  as  a  mere  confession  of 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPKS    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

weakness,  it  runs  off  from  that  point  into  mere  confusion  and 
morbidness.  But  add  to  it  the  doctrine  of  faith,  and  it  ac- 
quires its  proper  complement ;  balances  its  human  disclaimer 
with  a  divine  resource ;  and  instead  of  sending  its  captive 
through  dark  labyrinths  of  vain  experiment,  opens  a  direct 
way  from  the  chambers  of  humiliation  to  the  prophet's  watch- 
tower  of  prayer  and  vision.  Without  this  complement,  the 
doctrine  created  priesthoods ;  with  it,  destroys  them.  With- 
out it,  men  are  caught  up  in  their  moments  of  helplessness, 
and  handed  over  to  ritual  quackeries ;  with  it,  they  are  seized 
in  their  hour  of  inspiration,  and  flung  into  the  arms  of  God. 
The  susceptibility  for  either  treatment  depends  on  the  pre- 
dominance of  impulse  and  passion  over  breadth  of  imagination 
and  strength  of  will.  In  short,  there  are  minds  whose  power 
is  shed,  if  we  may  say  so,  in  jprotension,  precipitated  forwards 
in  narrow  channels  with  impetuous  torrent.  There  are  others 
whose  affluence  is  in  extension,  and  spreads  out  like  a  still  lake 
to  drink  in  light  from  the  open  sky,  and  reflect  the  look  of 
wide-encircling  hills.  And  there  are  others  yet  again,  whose 
character  is  intension,  and  that  move  on  in  full  volume,  and 
with  steady  stream  of  tendency,  rising  and  falling  little  with 
the  seasons,  and  holding  to  the  limits  within  which  they  are 
to  go.  The  faith  of  the  first  is  sacrificial ;  of  the  second, 
pantheistic  ;  of  the  third,  theisfic. 

Of  the  four  cardinal  tendencies  we  have  named,  the  scien- 
tific has  never  been  provided  for  within  the  interior  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  whose  organic  life  and  structure  are  complete  without 
it.  It  remains,  therefore,  sullenly  on  the  outside,  without  re- 
nouncing at  present  its  atheistic  propensions :  and  the  part  it 
has  played,  however  important,  has  been  that  of  external 
check  and  antagonism,  in  the  assertion  of  neglected  rights  of 
knowledge,  and  slighted  interests  of  mankind.  This  cannot 
possibly  continue  for  ever ;  nor  is  it  at  all  consistent  with  ex- 
perience to  suppose,  that  either  of  the  opponent  influences 
will  obtain  a  victory  over  the  other.  Their  reconcilement, 
through  the  mediation  and  within  the  compass  of  some  third 
and  more  comprehensive  conception,  is  a  task  remaining  for 


10  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OP   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  philosophy  and  charity  of  the  future.  We  feel  no  doubt 
that  it  will  be  accomplished ;  and  will  spare  us  that  revolution- 
ary extermination  of  theology  and  metaphysics  which  is  pro- 
claimed, on  behalf  of  positive  science,  by  the  self-appointed 
Committee  of  the  "  Republique  Occidentale."  The  other  three 
tendencies  early  worked  their  way  into  the  Christian  religion, 
and  vindicated  a  place  within  its  organism.  Indeed,  the  his- 
torical genesis  of  the  Catholic  Church  consists  of  little  else, 
on  the  inner  side  of  dogma  and  ethics,  than  the  successive  and 
successful  self-assertion  of  each  of  these  principles ;  and,  on 
the  outer  side  of  ecclesiastical  polity,  than  the  construction  of 
a  social  framework  which  held  them  in  co-existence  till  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  genius  of  three  distinct  peoples  con- 
spired to  fill  up  the  measure  of  the  early  faith;  and  each 
brought  with  it  a  separate  constituent.  The  Hebrew  believer 
contributed  his  theistic  conscience ;  the  Hellenic,  his  panthe- 
istic speculation ;  the  Romanic,  his  passionate  appropriation 
of  redemption  by  faith.  The  elements  were,  from  the  first, 
mixed  and  struggling  together  ;  so  that  the  phenomena  of  no 
period,  probably  of  no  place,  serve  to  show  them  disengaged 
from  one  another  and  insulated.  But  the  Ebionitish  period, 
with  its  rigorous  monachism,  its  historical  and  human 
Christ,  its  scrupulous  asceticism,  its  sternness  against  wealth, 
represents  the  ethical  principle  in  its  excess.  The  Logos  idea, 
and  indeed  the  whole  development  of  the  Trinitarian  doctrine, 
exhibits  the  effort  of  the  Greek  thought  to  obtain  recognition, 
and  qualify  the  Judaic.  And  the  Augustinian  theology, 
pleading  the  wants  of  fervid  natures,  on  whose  surface  the 
web  of  moral  doctrines  alights  only  to  be  shrivelled  and  dis- 
appear, completes  the  triad  of  agencies  from  whose  confluence 
the  faith  of  Christendom  arose.  In  the  Catholic  system  the 
three  ingredients  unite  in  one  composite  result ;  and  hence  the 
tenacity  with  which  that  system  keeps  possession  of  the  most 
various  types  of  human  character,  and,  baffled  by  the  spirit 
of  one  age,  returns  with  the  reaction  of  another.  The  ethical 
feeling  finds  satisfaction  in  its  theory  of  human  nature ;  the 
pantheistic,  in  its  scheme  of  supernatural  grace ;  the  sacrifi- 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  11 

cial,  in  its  conditions  of  redemption.  Through  the  realism  of 
the  mediaeval  schools,  its  eucharistic  doctrine,  which  is  only 
the  theological  side  of  that  philosophical  conception,  becomes  a 
direct  transfusion  of  Hellenic  influence  into  the  Church.  And 
its  faith  in  perpetual  inspiration,  in  the  unbroken  chain  of 
physical  miracle,  in  the  ceaseless  mingling  of  sacramental 
mystery  with  the  very  substance  of  this  world,  so  far  softens 
and  diffuses  the  concentrated  personality  of  the  Divine  Es- 
sence, as  to  indulge  the  free  fancy  of  art  Nor  can  we  deny 
the  same  capacity  of  beauty  to  its  hierarchy  of  holy  natures, 
—  from  the  village  saint,  through  the  heavenly  angels,  to  the 
Son  of  God,  —  all  blended  in  living  sympathies  that  cross  and 
recross  the  barriers  of  worlds.  This  comprehensive  adap- 
tation to  the  exigencies  of  mankind  is  a  reasonable  object  of 
admiration.  But  nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  the  appeal 
to  it  in  proof  either  of  preternatural  guidance,  or  of  human 
artifice,  in  the  constitutive  process  of  the  Roman  Church. 
There  is  nothing  very  surprising  in  the  fact,  that  a  system 
which  is  the  product  of  three  factors  should  contain  them  all. 
No  doubt  if  these  factors  are,  as  we  contend,  primary  and 
indestructible  features  of  our  unperverted  nature,  no  religion 
can  be  divine  and  completely  true  which  refuses  to  take  any 
of  them  up  ;  and  this  one  condition  of  the  future  faith  we  may 
learn  from  the  Christendom  of  the  past.  The  condition,  how- 
ever, must  be  satisfied  otherwise  than  by  the  strange  congeries 
of  profound  truths  and  puerile  fancies  which  is  dignified  by 
the  name  of  "  Catholic  doctrine." 

For,  be  it  observed,  this  system  has  no  intrinsic  and  neces- 
sary unity,  which  would  hold  it  together  when  abandoned  to  the 
free  action  of  the  mind,  whose  requirements  it  is  said  to  meet. 
It  has  something  for  conscience,  something  for  art,  something  for 
passion,  each  in  its  turn ;  but  it  is  not  a  whole  that  can  satisfy 
all  together.  Its  contents,  gathered  by  successive  experiences, 
cohere  through  the  external  grasp  of  a  sacerdotal  corporation ; 
and  if  that  hand  be  paralyzed  or  relaxed,  it  becomes  evident  at 
once  how  little  they  have  grown  together.  Hence  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  sixteenth  century,  whose  revolt  was  the  expression, 


12  DISTINCTIVE   TYPES    OJ1   CHRISTIANITY. 

not  of  theological  dissent,  but  of  ecclesiastical  disgust ;  and  in 
which  doctrine  only  accidentally  fell  to  pieces,  because  the 
authority  that  guarded  and  wielded  it  became  too  rotten  to  be 
believed  in.  The  secondary  revolution,  however,  was  incom- 
parably more  momentous  than  the  primary.  The  treasured 
seeds  that  dropped  from  the  shattered  casket  of  the  Church 
had  to  germinate  again  in  the  fresh  soil  of  the  richer  Euro- 
pean mind ;  and  the  great  year  of  their  development  is  still 
upon  its  round.  The  outward  dictation  of  the  Apostolic  See 
being  discarded,  it  became  necessary  to  find  another  clew  to 
divine  truth ;  and  the  inner  wants  of  the  human  soul  and  the 
passing  age  came  into  play,  with  no  restraint  within  the 
ample  scope  of  Scripture.  A  reconstitution  of  Christianity 
began,  —  on  the  basis,  no  doubt,  of  materials  already  accumu- 
lated, —  more  eclectic,  therefore,  and  less  creative,  than  in  the 
infancy  of  the  religion ;  but  proceeding,  nevertheless,  by  the 
same  law,  and  commencing  a  similar  cycle.  The  order  of 
development  in  this  second  life  of  Christendom  has  not  been 
the  same  as  in  the  first ;  but  the  stages,  though  transposed, 
do  not  differ  taken  one  by  one.  It  is  only  this,  —  that  whilst 
in  the  formation  of  the  faith  the  dominant  influences  were 
Conscience,  Art,  and  Passion,  in  its  Re-formation  they  are 
Passion,  Conscience,  Art.  At  the  moment  when  Luther  shat- 
tered the  fabric  of  pretended  unity,  and  compelled  the  husk  to 
shed  its  kernels,  the  season  and  the  field  were  unfavorable  to 
two  out  of  the  three,  and  they  lay  dormant  till  more  genial 
times.  The  moral  element  had  been  discredited  by  the  casu- 
istry of  the  confessional,  the  "  treasure  of  the  Church,"  and  the 
trade  in  meritorious  works ;  and,  decked  in  these  vile  trap- 
pings, was  flung  away  in  generous  disgust.  The  aesthetic  ele- 
ment had  become  so  paganized  in  Italy,  and  was  so  identified 
with  the  reproduction  of  the  very  tastes  and  vices,  the  thought 
and  style,  nay,  even  the  mythology  itself,  which  the  primitive 
religion  had  expelled  as  the  work  of  demons,  that  the  new 
piety  shrank  from  it,  and  let  it  alone.  In  an  age  when  epis- 
copates were  won  by  an  ear  for  hexameters  or  a  Ciceronian 
Latinity,  when  priests  defended  materialism  in  Tusculan  dis- 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  13 

putations,  when  popes  frequented  the  comic  theatre  and  Plau- 
tus  was  acted  in  the  Vatican,  when  the  proceeds  of  a  purga- 
torial traffic  were  spent  in  destroying  ancient  basilicas  and 
raising  heathenish  temples  over  the  sepulchres  of  saints,  it  was 
inevitable  that  beauty  should  become  suspected  by  sanctity. 
There  remained,  yet  unspoiled  by  the  adoption  of  a  corrupt 
generation,  the  impetuous  devotion  and  tremendous  theory  of 
Augustine  ;  and  this,  accordingly,  was  the  direction  in  which 
the  whole  early  Reformation  advanced.  It  was  not  the  acci- 
dent that  Luther  was  an  Augustinian  monk,  which  determined 
the  character  of  his  movement.  The  sickened  soul  of  Europe 
could  breathe  no  other  air.  Emaciated  with  the  mockery  of 
spiritual  aliment,  revolting  at  the  chopped  straw  and  apples 
of  Sodom  that  had  been  given  for  fruit  from  the  tree  of  life, 
it  sighed  for  escape  from  this  choking  discipline  into  some 
region  fresh  with  the  mountain  breath  of  faith  and  love,  and 
not  quite  barren  of  "angels'  food."  The  burdened  moral 
sense,  so  long  deluded  and  abused,  reduced  to  self-conscious 
dotage  by  vain  penances  and  vainer  promises,  flung  away  all 
belief  in  itself,  asked  leave  to  lay  its  freedom  down,  and  went 
into  captivity  to  Christ.  So  exclusively  did  the  feeling  of 
the  time  flow  into  this  channel,  that  no  doctrine  which  had  an 
ethical  groundwork,  or  attempted  to  soften  in  the  least  the 
implacable  hostility  of  nature  and  grace,  obtained  any  suc- 
cess ;  while  every  enthusiastic  excess  of  the  anti-catholic  ideas 
spread  like  wildfire.  The  irreproachable  innocence  and  piety 
of  the  Salzburg  Gartner-briider  did  nothing  to  save  them 
from  quick  martyrdom  to  their  Ebionitish  faith ;  while  the 
atrocities  and  ravings  of  the  Anabaptists  of  Miinster  scarcely 
sufficed  to  stop  the  triumph  of  their  hideous  kingdom  of  the 
saints.  The  movement  of  the  brave  Zwingli,  earlier  and 
more  moderate  than  either  Luther's  or  Calvin's,  was  easily 
restrained  by  them  within  the  narrowest  range,  whilst  the 
Genevan  Reformer,  cautious  and  ungenial,  had  but  to  collect 
his  logical  fuel,  and  kindle  the  terrible  fire  of  his  dogma,  and 
it  spread  from  the  icy  chambers  of  his  own  nature  and  wrapt 
whole  kingdoms  in  its  flames.  That  men  without  passion  or 
2 


14  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

pathos  themselves,  who  do  their  work  by  force  of  intellect 
and  will,  should  be  successful  disseminators  of  a  doctrine  that 
can  live  in  no  cool  air,  only  shows  how  wide  was  the  prepara- 
tion of  mind,  and  how  the  coming  of  this  time  fulfilled  the 
long  desire  of  nations. 

The  first  stage,  then,  of  the  new  development  of  Christian- 
ity was  its  Puritan  period.  The  natural  perdition  of  man, 
the  radical  corruption  of  his  will,  the  religious  indiiference  of 
all  his  states  and  actions,  and  the  consequent  worthlessness 
of  his  morality,  except  for  civil  uses  and  social  police,  con- 
stitute the  fundamental  assumptions  of  the  system.  From 
this  basis  of  despair  its  doctrine  of  atonement  comes  to  the 
rescue.  The  obedience  of  Christ  is  accepted  in  place  of  that 
which  men  cannot  render,  and  his  sacrifice  instead  of  the 
penalty  they  deserve.  Not,  however,  for  all,  but  for  those 
alone  who  may  appropriate  the  deliverance  by  an  act  of  faith, 
and  present  the  merits  of  Christ  as  their  offering  to  God,  with 
full  assurance  of  their  sufficiency.  Nothing  but  a  divine  and 
involuntary  conversion  can  generate  this  faith,  which  follows 
no  predisposition  from  the  antecedent  life,  but  the  inscrutable 
decree  of  Heaven.  Once  transferred  from  the  state  of  nature 
into  that  of  grace,  the  disciple  becomes,  through  the  Holy 
Spirit,  a  new  creature ;  is  conscious  of  a  sacred  revolution  in 
his  tastes  and  affections  ;  gives  evidence  of  this  by  good 
works,  which,  now  purified  in  their  principle,  are  no  longer 
unacceptable  to  God ;  and  knows  that,  though  he  is  still 
liable  to  the  sins,  he  is  redeemed  from  the  penalties,  of  a  son 
of  Adam.  The  Church  is  the  body  of  the  converted,  and 
while  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism  initiates  the  candidate,  and 
provisionally  secures  him,  the  Communion  seals  his  adoption 
afterwards ;  the  efficacy  of  both  being  conditional  on  the  inner 
faith  of  the  participant.  The  intense  and  unmediated  antith- 
esis of  nature  and  grace,  and  the  gulf,  impassable  except  by 
miracle,  between  their  two  spheres,  may  be  regarded  as  the 
most  characteristic  feature  of  this  scheme.  Its  text-book 
contains  the  Pauline  Epistles,  and  opens  most  readily  at  the 
Romans  or  Galatians  ;  and  its  favorite  writers  are  Augustine, 


DISTINCTIVE   TYPES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  15 

Luther,  Calvin,  and  Edwards.  With  vast  internal  differences 
in  their  particular  conceptions  of  Christian  truth  and  of  eccle- 
siastical government,  the  so-called  Evangelical  sects  retain  the 
impress  of  their  common  origin  in  the  dearth  of  any  ethical 
or  aesthetic  element  in  their  religion. 

From  this  alone  must  have  resulted  the  fact  which  a  plu- 
rality of  causes  has  concurred  in  producing  ;  viz.  that  the 
Reformation  soon  (within  a  century  and  a  half)  reached  its 
apparent  limit  of  extent,  and  propagated  itself  only  internally 
by  further  evolutions  of  thought.  It  had  taken  up  and  ex- 
hausted the  class  of  minds  to  which  it  was  specially  adapted ; 
and  after  appropriating  these,  found  itself  arrested.  Under 
the  impulse  of  a  newly-awakened  piety  men  are  disposed  to 
feel  that  they  cannot  attribute  too  much  to  God ;  and  there 
will  always  be  large  numbers  who,  from  the  absorbing  inten- 
sity of  religious  sentiment,  or  the  dominance  of  predestinarian 
theory,  or  the  ill  balance  of  partial  cultivation,  abdicate  all 
personal  power  of  good  in  favor  of  irreversible  decrees.  But 
as  the  tension  relaxes  or  the  culture  enlarges,  the  moral  in- 
stincts reassert  their  existence ;  and  the  monstrous  distortions 
incident  to  any  theory  which  denies  their  authority  become 
too  repulsive  to  be  borne.  Hence  a  reaction,  in  which  the 
natural  conscience  takes  the  lead,  and  insists  on  obtaining  that 
reconciliation  with  God  which  has  already  been  conquered  for 
the  affections.  Men  in  whom  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong 
is  deep  cannot  divest  themselves  of  reverence  for  it  as  au- 
thoritative and  divine ;  nor  can  they  truly  profess  that  it  is  to 
them  an  empty  voice,  which,  venerable  as  it  sounds,  they  are 
never  able  to  obey.  They  know  what  a  difference  it  makes 
to  them,  in  the  whole  peace  and  power  of  their  being,  whether 
they  are  faithful  or  whether  they  are  false ;  that  this  differ- 
ence belongs  alike  to  their  state  of  nature  and  their  state  of 
grace ;  that  it  is  as  little  possible  to  withhold  admiration  from 
the  magnanimity  of  the  Pagan  Socrates  as  from  that  of  the 
Christian  Paul ;  and  that  the  sentiment  which  compels  homage 
to  both  is  the  same  that  looks  up  with  trust  and  worship  to  the 
justice  and  holiness  of  God :  how,  then,  can  they  consent  to  draw 


16  DISTINCTIVE   TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

an  unreal  line  of  impassable  separation  between  ethical  quali- 
ties before  conversion  and  the  very  same  qualities  after,  and 
abrogate  in  the  one  case  the  moral  distinctions  which  become 
valid  in  the  other  ?  The  two  lives,  —  of  earth  and  heaven  ; 
the  two  minds,  —  human  and  divine;  the  two  states, —  nature 
and  grace ;  which  it  is  the  impulse  of  enthusiasm  to  contrast, 
it  is  the  necessity  of  conscience  to  unite.  .."When  Luther  first 

_blew_up jthe  sacerdotalJjridge  which  had  given  a  path_across 
to  the  steps  of_centuries,  the  boldness  of  the  deed_and  the 
inspiration L^>f_the,  time  ^lightened  the  feet  of  men,  and  enabled 

.them  jto  spring_oyer  with_him  on_the  wing  of  faith.  But 
when  the  van  had  passed,  and  the  more  equable  and  dis- 
ciplined ranks  of  another  generation  were  brought  to  the 
brink,  there  seemed  a  needless  rashness  in  the  attempt,  and 
foundations  were  discovered  for  a  structure  based  on  the  rock 
of  nature,  and  making  one  province  of  both  worlds.  Even 
Melancthon,  long  as  he  yielded  to  his  leader's  more  powerful 
will,  could  not  permanently  acquiesce  in  the  complete  extinc- 
tion of  human  responsibility  ;  and  vindicated  for  the  soul  a 
voluntary  co-operation  with  divine  grace.  This  semi-Pelagian 
example  rapidly  spread ;  first  among  the  later  Lutherans, 
especially  of  Brunswick  and  Hanover ;  next  into  the  school 
of  Leyden ;  and  finally  into  the  Church  and  universities  of 
England.  Quick  to  seize  the  reaction  in  the  temper  of  the 
times,  the  Jesuits  put  themselves  at  the  head  of  the  same 
tendency  in  their  own  communion ;  defended  against  the  Jan- 
senists  a  doctrine  of  free-will  beyond  even  the  limits  of  Catho- 
lic orthodoxy ;  upheld  Molina  against  Augustine,  as  among 
the  Protestants  Episcopius  was  gaining  upon  Calvin.  Among 
patriotic  theologians  the  authority  of  the  Latin  Church  gave 
way  in  favor  of  the  early  Christian  apologists  and  Greek 
Fathers,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  scheme  of  decrees.  Di- 
vinity, under  the  guidance  of  More  and  Cudworth,  no  longer 
disdained  to  replenish  her  oil  and  revive  her  flame  from  the 
lamp  of  Athenian  philosophy.  And  the  conception  of  a  uni- 
versal natural  law  was  elaborately  worked  out  by  Grotius. 
As  the  sixteenth  century  was  the  period  of  dogmatic  theology, 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  17 

the  seventeenth  was  that  of  ethical  philosophy ;  the  whole 
modern  history  of  which  lies  mainly  within  that  limit  and  half 
a  century  lower ;  arid  conclusively  attests  the  decline  of  a 
scheme  of  belief  incompatible  with  the  very  existence  of  such 
a  science.  When  the  Protestantism  which  had  produced  a 
Farel,  a  Beza,  and  a  Whitgift,  offered  as  its  representatives 
Locke  and  Limborch,  Tillotson  and  Butler,  the  nature  of  the 
change  which  had  come  over  it  declares  itself.  It  was  the 
revolt  of  moral  sentiment  Against  a  doctrine  that  outraged  it, 
—  the  re-development,  under  new  conditions,  of  the  ethical 
principle  which  had  jMlen_nejjlected  from  the  broken  seed- 
vessel  of  the  Catholic  faith. 

The  second  season  of  the  Reformation,  though  treated  now 
with  unmerited  disparagement,  was  not  less  worthy  of  admira- 
tion than  the  first.  High-Churchmen  may  be  ashamed  of  an 
archbishop  who  proposed  a  scheme  of  comprehension ;  Evan- 
gelicals, of  a  preacher  who  applauded  the  Socinians  ;  and 
Coleridgians,  of  a  theologian  who  was  no  deeper  in  metaphys- 
ics than  the  "  Grotian  divines  "  ;  but  neither  the  Erastianism, 
the  charity,  nor  the  common  sense  of  a  Tillotson  would  be  at 
all  unsuitable  at  this  moment  to  a  church  openly  torn  by  dis- 
sensions and  really  held  together  only  by  dependence  on  the 
state.  It  has  been  a  current  opinion,  perseveringly  propa- 
gated by  adherents  of  the  Geneva  theology,  that  the  spread  of 
Arminian  sentiments  was  equivalent  to  a  religious  decline, 
and  concurrent  with  the  growth  of  a  worldly  laxity  and  selfish 
indifference  of  character.  The  allegation  is  absolutely  false. 
In  literature,  in  personal  characteristics,  and  in  public  life,  the 
Latitude-men  and  their  associates  in  belief  bear  honorable 
comparison  with  their  more  rigorous  forerunners.  There  is 
not  only  less  of  passionate  intolerance,  but  a  nobler  freedom 
from  an  equivocal  prudence,  in  the  great  writers  of  the  second 
period,  than  in  the  Reformers  of  the  first :  and  (here  is  more 
to  touch  the  springs  of  disinterestedness  and  elevation  of  mind 
in  Cudworth  and  Clarke  than  in  Calvin  ajul  Beza.  Nor  did 
the  return  of  ethical  theory  weaken  the  sources  of  religious 
action.  The  very  enterprises  in  which  evangelical  zeal  most 
2* 


18  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

rejoices,  —  missions  to  the  heathen,  and  the  diffusion  of  the 
Scriptures,  —  were  not  only  prosecuted  but  set  on  foot  in  new 
directions  and  with  more  powerful  instrumentalities,  in  the 
very  midst  of  this  period,  and  by  the  very  labors  of  its  most 
distinguished  philosophers.  The  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of 
Christian  Knowledge,  and  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  were  both  born  with  the  eigh- 
teenth century ;  and  while  the  latter  addressed  itself  to  the 
natives  and  slaves  of  the  American  provinces,  the  former  first 
made  the  Scriptures  known  on  the  Coromandel  coast.  It  was 
Boyle  who,  of  all  men  of  his  age,  displayed  the  most  generous 
zeal  for  the  multiplication  of  the  sacred  writings,  himself  pro- 
curing their  translation  into  four  or  five  languages.  For  thirty 
years  he  was  governor  of  a  missionary  corporation.  Yet  the 
complexion  of  his  theology  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  fact 
that  he  bought  up  Pococke's  Arabic  translation  of  Grotius 
(De  Veritate  Christianas  Religionis),  and  was  at  the  cost  of 
its  wide  distribution  in  the  East.  And  who  that  has  ever 
read  it  can  forget  Swift's  letter  to  the  Irish  viceroy  (Lord 
Carteret),  introducing  Bishop  Berkeley  (then  Dean  of  Der- 
ry),  and  his  project  for  resigning  his  preferment  at  home  in 
order  that,  on  a  stipend  of  £  100  a  year,  he  might  devote  him- 
self to  the  conversion  of  the  American  Indians  ?  The  imper- 
turbable patience  with  which  the  good  Dean  prosecuted  his 
object,  the  self-devotion  with  which  he  embarked  in  it  his 
property  and  life,  the  gratefulness  with  which  he  accepted 
from  the  government  the  promise  of  a  grant,  and  the  treach-- 
ery  which  broke  the  promise,  and  after  seven  years  compelled 
his  return,  make  up  a  story  unrivalled  for  its  contrast  of 
saintly  simplicity  and  ministerial  bad  faith.  These  and  simi- 
lar features  of  the  time  superfluously  refute  the  arbitrary  and 
C arrogant  assumption,  that  no  piety  can  be  living  and  profound 

t except  that  which  disbelieves  all  natural  religion,  no  gospel 
holy  which  does  not  renounce  the  moral  law,  no  faith  prolific 
in  works  unless  it  begins  with  despising  them. 

There  was,  however,  still  a  defect  in  this  gospel  of  con- 
science.    Regarding  the   world  and  life  as  the  object  of  a 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  19 

divine  administration,  and  seeking  to  interpret  them  by  a 
scheme  of  final  causes,  it  was  wholly  occupied  with  the  con- 
ception of  God  as  proposing  to  himself  certain  ends,  and  ar- 
ranging the  means  for  their  accomplishment.  In  this  light 
He  is  a  Being  with  moral  preconceptions  and  an  economy 
for  bringing  them  to  pass.  Everything  is  for  a  purpose,  and 
subsists  for  the  sake  of  what  is  ulterior,  and  forms  part  of  a 
mechanism  working  out  a  prescribed  problem.  The  tendency 
of  this  way  of  thinking  will  inevitably  be,  to  hunt  for  provi- 
dences. These  the  narrow  mind  will  place  in  the  incidents 
of  individual  life  ;  the  comprehensive  intellect,  in  the  laws  and 
relations  of  the  universe ;  not  perhaps  in  either  case  without 
some  danger  from  human  egotism  of  referring  too  much  to  the 
good  and  ill  which  is  relative  to  man.  The  infinite  perfec- 
tions of  God  will  be  concentrated,  so  to  speak,  too  much  in 
the  notion  of  His  WILL,  and  the  powers  which  subserve  its 
designs  ;  and  will  in  consequence  be  as  much  misapprehended 
as  would  be  our  own  nature  by  an  observer  assuming  that  we 
put  forth  all  its  life  and  phenomena  on  purpose.  Indeed,  the 
exclusive  and  unbalanced  ascendency  of  the  moral  faculty 
tempts  a  man  to  fancy  this  sort  of  existence  the  only  right  one 
for  himself;  to  suspect  every  flow  of  unwatched  feeling,  and 
call  himself  to  account  for  the  burst  of  ringing  laughter,  or  the 
surprise  of  sudden  tears,  and  aim  at  an  autocratic  command  of 
his  own  soul.  It  is  not  wonderful  that  his  ideal  of  human 
character  should  reappear  in  his  representation  of  the  Divine. 
The  error  deforms  his  faith  as  much  as  it  tends  to  stiffen  and 
constrict  his  life.  Leading  him  always  to  ask  what  a  thing  is 
for,  it  hinders  him  from  seeing  what  it  is  ;  in  search  of  the 
motive,  he  misses  the  look  ;  and  his  interest  in  it  being  transi- 
tive, he  sinks  into  it  with  no  sympathy  on  its  own  account. 
This  is  only  to  say,  in  other  words,  that  his  prepossession  de- 
tains him  from  the  artistic  contemplation  of  objects  and 
events ;  for  while  it  is  the  business  of  science  to  inquire  their 
origination,  and  of  morals  to  follow  their  drift,  it  remains  for 
art  to  appreciate  their  nature.  To  feel  the  type  of  thought 
which  they  express,  to  recognize  the  idea  which  they  invest 


20  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

with  form,  the  mind  must  rest  upon  them,  not  as  products  or 
as  instruments,  but  as  realities ;  and  their  significance  must 
not  be  imposed  upon  them,  but  read  off  from  them.  The 
meaning  which  art  detects  in  life  and  the  world  is  not  a  pur- 
pose, but  a  sentiment ;  in  its  view  the  present  attitudes  and 
development  of  things  are  rather  the  out-coming  of  an  inner 
feeling  than  the  tools  of  a  remoter  end.  To  find  room  for  this 
mode  of  conception  something  must  be  added  to  the  ethical 
representation  of  God.  lie  must  be  regarded  as  not  always 
and  throughout  engaged  in  processes  of  intention  and  volition, 
but  as  having,  around  this  moral  centre,  an  infinite  atmos- 
phere of  creative  thought  and  affection,  which,  like  the  native 
inspirations  of  a  pure  and  sublime  human  soul,  spontaneously 
flow  out  in  forms  of  beauty,  and  movements  of  rhythm,  and  a 
thousand  aspects  of  divine  expression.  Religion  demands  the 
admission  of  this  free  element:  and  without  it,  will  cease  to 
speak  home  to  men  of  susceptible  genius  and  poetic  nature, 
and  must  limit  itself  more  and  more  to  the  fanatical  minds 
that  have  too  little  regulation,  and  the  moral  that  have  too 
much.  A  God  who  offers  terms  of  communion  only  to  the 
passionate  and  to  the  conscientious,  will  not  touch  the  springs 

*"  of  worship  in  perceptive  and  meditative  men.  Their  prayer 
is  less  to  know  the  published  rules  than  to  overhear  the  lonely 
whispers  of  the  Eternal  Mind,  to  be  at  one  with  His  immedi- 

I  ate  life  in  the  universe,  and  to  shape  or  sing  into  articulate 
utterance  the  silent  inspirations  of  which  all  existence  is  full. 
Their  peculiar  faculties  supply  them  with  other  interests  than 
about  their  sins,  their  salvation,  and  their  conscience ;  they 
feel  neither  sufficiently  guilty,  nor  sufficiently  anxious  to  be 
good,  to  make  a  religion  out  of  the  one  consciousness  or  the 
other ;  but  if,  indeed,  it  be  God  that  flashes  on  them  in  so 
many  lights  of  solemn  beauty  from  the  face  of  common  things, 
that  wipes  off  sometimes  the  steams  of  custom  from  the  win- 
dow of  the  soul,  and  surprises  it  with  a  presence  of  tenderness 
and  mystery,  —  if  the  tension  of  creative  thought  in  themselves, 
which  can  rest  in  nothing  imperfect,  yet  realize  nothing  per- 
fect, be  an  unconscious  aspiration  towards  Him,  —  then  there  is 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  21 

a  way  of  access  to  their  inner  faith,  and  a  temple  pavement 
on  which  they  will  consent  to  kneel.  It  is,  we  believe,  the  in- 
ability of  Protestantism,  in  either  of  its  previous  forms,  to 
meet  this  order  of  wants,  that  has  reduced  it  to  its  state  of 
weakness  and  discredit ;  and  the  struggle  of  thought,  charac- 
teristic of  the  present  century,  is  an  unconscious  attempt  to 
supply  the  defect,  and  to  vindicate,  for  the  third  element  of 
Catholic  Christianity,  the  possibility  of  development  in  the 
open  air  of  Protestant  belief.  The  change  began,  like  both 
of  the  earlier  ones,  in  Germany ;  and  it  was  from  Plato  that 
Schleiermacher  learned  where  the  weakness  of  Christian  dog- 
ma lay,  and  in  what  field  of  thought  he  might  create  a  diver- 
sion from  the  disastrous  assaults  of  French  materialism,  and 
restore  the  balance  of  the  fight.  An  Hellenic  spirit  was  in- 
fused into  the  scientific  theology  of  the  Continent,  and  has 
never  ceased  to  prevail  there,  though  Aristotle  has  long  suc- 
ceeded to  Plato  as  the  channel  of  influence.  When  Hegel, 
long  the  rival  of  Schleiermacher,  triumphed  over  him,  not  only 
in  the  coteries  of  Berlin,  but  in  the  schools  of  Germany,  he  no 
doubt  turned  the  philosophy  which  had  been  invoked  to  pre- 
serve the  faith  into  a  dialectic,  at  whose  magic  touch  it  deli- 
quesced ;  and  no  one  who  has  followed  the  application  of  his 
principles  to  history  and  dogma  can  be  surprised  at  the  antip- 
athy they  awaken  in  the  Church.  But  it  would  be  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  the  step  into  Pantheism  was  made  by  Hegel, 
and  that  the  opposing  theologians  raised  up  by  the  great 
preacher  of  Berlin  occupy  in  this  respect  any  different 
ground.  Since  the  time  of  Jacobi  theism  proper  has  not 
been  heard  of  in  Germany :  the  very  writers  who  mean  to 
defend  it,  surrender  it  in  the  disguise  of  their  definition  of  per- 
sonality ;  and  so  steeped  is  the  whole  national  mind  in  the 
colors  of  Hellenic  thought,  that  from  Neander  to  Strauss  can 
be  found,  in  our  deliberate  judgment,  only  different  shades  of 
the  same  pantheistic  conception.  What  does  this  denote  but 
a  universal  sigh  after  a  God,  who  shall  be  neither  a  Jehovah, 
a  Judaic  atn-oKparwp,  nor  a  redeeming  Dens  ex  machina,  super- 
vening upon  the  theatre  of  history,  but  a  living  and  energizing 


22  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

Spirit,  quickening  the  very  heart  of  to-day,  and  whispering 
round  the  dome  of  Herschel's  sky  not  less  than  in  the  third 
story  of  Paul's  heaven?  In  some  this  feeling  breaks  out  in 
devilish  defiance,  as  in  the  unhappy  Heinrich  Heine's  saying, 
"  I  am  no  child,  I  do  not  want  a  Heavenly  Father  any  more " : 
in  others  it  breathes  out,  as  with  Novalis,  in  a  tender  mysti- 
cism, and  is  traceable  by  the  reverent  footfall  and  uncovered 
head  with  which  they  pace,  as  in  a  cathedral,  the  solemn  aisles 
of  life  and  nature.  The  expression  of  this  tendency  has 
passed  into  the  literature  of  our  own  language,  and  every 
year  is  tinging  it  more  and  more  with  its  characteristic  hues. 
Emerson  affords  the  purest  and  most  unmixed  example  ;  but 
perhaps  the  earlier  writings  of  Carlyle,  —  before  the  divine 
thirst  had  advanced  so  much  into  a  human  rabies,  —  and  more 
especially  his  Sartor  Resartus,  may  be  taken  as  the  real  gos- 
pel of  this  sentiment.  The  intense  operation  of  these  essays, 
so  entirely  alien  to  the  traditions  of  English  thought  and  taste, 
is  an  evidence  of  something  more  than  the  genius  of  their  au- 
thors :  it  is  proof  of  a  certain  combustible  state  of  the  English 
mind,  prepared  by  drought  and  deadness  to  burst  into  the 
flame  of  this  new  worship.  This  feeling,  diffused  through  the 
very  air  of  the  time,  has  unmistakably  evinced  its  essential 
identity  with  the  instinct  of  art ;  in  part,  by  a  direct  affluence 
and  excellence  of  production  unknown  to  the  preceding  age, 
but  still  more,  in  the  wide  extension  of  an  appreciating  love 
for  the  creations  of  artistic  genius.  The  melancholy  prophets 
who  see  in  this  spreading  susceptibility  only  a  morbid  symp- 
tom of  decadent  civilization,  are  misled,  we  hope,  by  imperfect 
histoi'ical  parallels.  The  flower,  no  doubt,  both  of  Athenian 
and  of  Italian  culture,  was  most  brilliant  just  before  it  drooped. 
But  the  soil  which  bore  it,  and  the  elements  that  surrounded 
it,  had  no  essential  resemblance  to  the  conditions  of  modern 
English  society,  in  which,  above  all,  there  are  the  unex- 
hausted juices  of  a  moral  faith  and  a  strenuous  habit,  not  stim- 
ulant perhaps  of  hasty  growth,  but  giving  hardihood  against 
the  open  air  and  the  natural  seasons. 

By  the  rules  of  technical  theology,  it  may  appear  strange 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  23 

to  reckon  the  turn  from  theism  to  pantheism  as  a  third  stage 
of  the  Reformation  ;  as  if  it  could  be  at  all  included  in  the  in- 
terior history  of  Christianity,  instead  of  being  treated  as  a 
direct  apostasy.  And  it  is  in  reality  a  very  serious  question, 
whether,  without  unfaithfulness  to  its  essential  character,  the 
Christian  religion  can  domesticate  within  it  this  new  action  of 
thought,  or  must  from  the  first  visit  it  with  unqualified  excom- 
munication. On  the  one  hand,  nothing  can  be  more  absurd 
than  to  suppose  that  a  faith  of  Hebrew  origin,  a  faith  whose 
very  hypothesis  is  sin,  and  whose  aspiration  is  moral  perfect- 
ness,  can  ever  be  reconciled  with  a  thorough-going  pantheism. 
On  the  other  hand,  nothing  can  be  more  gratuitous  than  to 
assume  that  the  feeling  which,  on  getting  the  whole  mind  to 
itself,  generates  a  pantheistic  scheme,  has  no  legitimate  exer- 
cise, and  gains  its  indulgence  altogether  at  the  expense  of 
Christian  truth.  If  we  mistake  not,  the  pith  of  the  matter 
lies  in  a  small  compass.  Let  Christian  Tlieism  keep  Morals, 
and  Pantheism  may  have  Nature.  This  rule  is  no  mere  com- 
promise or  coalition  of  incongruous  elements,  but  is  founded, 
we  are  convinced,  on  distinctions  real  and  eternal.  So  long 
as  a  holy  will  is  left  to  God,  and  a  power  committed  to  man, 
free  to  sustain  relations  of  trust  and  responsibility,  room  re- 
mains for  all  the  conditions  of  Christianity,  and  the  field  be- 
yond may  be  open  to  the  range  of  mystic  perception,  and 
railed  off  for  the  sacrament  of  beauty.  But  whether  this  or 
any  oilier  be  the  just  partition  of  territory  between  the  two 
claimants,  partition  there  must  be,  for  the  real  truth  of  things 
must  correspond,  not  to  the  hypothesis  of  any  single  human 
faculty,  but  to  harmonized  postulates  of  all.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing that,  on  its  first  re-birth,  the  gospel  of  nature  should  deny 
the  gospel  of  duty,  or  so  take  it  up  into  its  own  fine  essence 
as  to  volatilize  all  its  substance  away.  This  is  but  the  natural 
revenge  taken  for  past  neglect,  and  the  needful  challenge  to 
future  attention.  Each  one  of  the  three  developments  has  in 
its  turn  run  out  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Christian  faith,  and 
yet,  hitherto,  each  has  established  a  place  within  it.  The  He- 
gelian, or  Emersonian,  type  of  the  third  period  is  but  the  cor- 


Z4  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

responding  phenomenon  to  the  Antinomianism  of  the  first,  and 
the  Deism  of  the  second.  And  as  these  have  passed  away, 
after  surrendering  into  the  custody  of  Christendom  the  princi- 
ples that  gave  them  strength,  so  will  the  Pantheism  of  to-day, 
when  it  has  provided  for  the  safe-keeping  of  its  charge,  and 
seen  the  Church  complete  its  triad  of  Faith,  Holiness,  and 
Beauty. 

This  question,  however,  will  be  asked :  If  the  Reformation 
only  repeats,  with  some  transposition,  the  cycle  of  the  primi- 
tive development,  how  are  we  the  better  for  having  thus  to  do 
our  work  again  ?  Are  we  to  end  where  the  sixteenth  century 
began,  and  to  reproduce  the  Catholicism  which  was  then  re- 
solved into  its  elements  ?  And  does  some  fatal  necessity  doom 
us  to  this  wearisome  periodicity  ?  Not  in  the  least.  How- 
ever little  the  seeds  may  be  able  to  transgress  the  limits  of 
species,  and  may  remain  indistinguishable  from  millennium  to 
millennium,  the  conditions  of  growth  are  so  different  as  practi- 
cally to  cancel  the  identity  in  the  result.  Taken  even  one  by 
one,  the  modern  forms  of  doctrine  are  far  nobler  than  their 
early  prototypes.  The  narrow  Ebionitism  of  the  original 
Church  is  not  comparable,  as  an  expression  of  the  conscience, 
with  the  moral  philosophy  of  Butler ;  and  the  Greek  element 
of  thought,  flowing  by  Berlin,  has  entered  the  Church  in 
deeper  channels  than  when  infiltrating  through  the  theosophy 
of  Alexandria.  It  is  only  in  relation  to  the  passionate  ele- 
ment that  the  doubt  can  be  raised,  whether  we  have  gained 
in  truth  and  grandeur  by  passing  the  religion  of  Augustine 
through  the  minds  of  the  modern  reformers ;  and  whether  the 
Jansenists  within  the  Church  do  not  exhibit  a  higher  phase  of 
character  than  the  Huguenots  without  it.  But  at  any  rate, 
the  modern  development,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  secure  of  an  in- 
ner unity  and  completeness  which  before  has  been  unattained. 
/It  is  an  obvious,  yet  little  noticed,  consequence  of  the  inven- 
tion of  printing,  that  no  one  mood  of  feeling  or  school  of 
I  thought  can  tyrannize  over  a  generation  of  mankind,  and 
I  sweep  all  before  it,  as  of  old ;  and  then  again,  with  change  in 
the  intellectual  season,  rot  utterly  away,  and  give  place  to  a 


DISTINCTIVE   TYPES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  25 

successor  no  less  absolute.     Generations  and  ages  now  live  in  ' 
presence  of  each  other ;    the  impulse  of  the  present  is  re- 
strained by  the  counsels  of  the  past,  and,  in  fighting  for  the 
throne  of  the  human  mind,  finds  it  not  only  strong  in  living 
prepossession,  but  guarded  by  shadowy  sentinels,  encircled  by  • 
a  band  of  immortals.     Hence  the  history  of  ideas  can  never 
be  again  so  wayward  and  fitful  as  it  was  in  the  first  centuries 
of  our  era ;  losing  all  interest  at  one  period  in  the  questions 
which  had  maddened  the  preceding;  for  a  time  covered  all 
over  with  the  pale  haze  of  Byzantine  metaphysics,  and  then  ' 
suffused  with  red  heats  of  African  enthusiasm.     New  truth  i 
can  no  longer  forget  the  old,  and  thrive  wholly  at  its  expense,  ^ 
or  even  make  a  compact  with  it  to  take  turn  and  turn  about,  ^ 
but  must  find  an  organic  relation  with  it,  so  as  to  be  its  en-  t 
largement  rather  than  its  rival.     The  modern  moralist  already  " 
understands  Augustine  better  than   did  the  old   Pelagians ; 
"Evangelical"  teachers  begin  to  insist  on  Christian  ethics; 
and  the  increasing  disposition,  even  in  heterodox  persons,  to 
dwell  on  the  Incarnation  as  the  central  point  of  faith,  shows 
how  credible  and  welcome  becomes  the  notion  of  the  union  of 
human  with  divine,  and  of  the  moral  manifestation  of  God  in 
the  life  and  soul  of  man.     The  time,  we  trust,  is  gone,  for  the 
merely  linear  advancement  of  the  European  mind,  with  all  its 
action  and  reaction  propagated  downwards,  and  wasting  centu- 
ries on  phenomena  that  might  co-exist.     Henceforth  it  may 
open  out  in  all  dimensions  at  once,  and  fill,  as  its  own  for 
ever,  the  whole  space  of  true  thought  into  which  its  past  in- 
crements have  borne  it.     Sects,  no  doubt,  and  schools,  will 
continue  to  arise  on  the  outskirts  of  the  intellectual  realm, 
possessed  by  partial  inspirations ;   but  the  world's  centre  of 
gravity  will  be  more  and  more  occupied  by  minds  that  can  at 
once  balance   and   retain  these  marginal  excesses,  that  can 
round  off  the  sphere  by  inner  force  of  reason,  and,  dispensing 
with  the  outer  mould  of  sacerdotal  compression,  let  the  tides 
flow  free,  and  the  winds  blow  strong,  without  alarm  for  the 
eternal  harmony.     This  is  the  form  in  which  nature  will  re- 
store, and  God  approve,  a  Catholic  consent. 
3 


26  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OP    CHRISTIANITY. 

The  idea  we  have  endeavored  to  give  of  the  genesis  of 
Christian  doctrine,  and  the  law  of  its  vicissitudes,  is  offered 
only  as  conveniently  distributing  the  subjective  sources  of 
faith.  It  cannot  be  applied  to  the  phenomena  of  particular 
countries  apart  from  ample  historical  knowledge  of  the  con- 
current social  and  political  conditions,  without  which  the  most 
accurate  clews  to  the  natural  history  of  thought  can  only  mis- 
lead as  the  interpreter  of  concrete  events.  When,  for  instance, 
we  look  around  us  at  home,  and  seek  for  the  English  repre- 
sentatives of  the  several  tendencies  explained  above,  we  may, 
no  doubt,  find  them  here  and  there,  but  they  are  so  far  from 
exhausting  the  facts  of  our  time,  that  some  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous parties  —  as  the  Anglicans  —  seem  provided  with  no 
place  at  all.  The  obscurity  first  begins  to  clear  away  when 
we  remember  that  in  England  Schism  went  before  Reforma- 
tion. The  aim  of  Henry  VIII.  was  simply  to  detach  and 
nationalize  the  Church  in  his  dominions ;  to  give  it  insular 
integrity  instead  of  provincial  dependence ;  and  could  this 
have  been  done  without  meddling  with  the  system  of  Catholic 
doctrine  at  all,  the  scheme  of  faith  would  have  been  preserved 
entire.  While  Luther  and  the  Continental  opponents  of  Rome 
were  faithful  to  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  Christendom,  and 
were  calling  out  for  a  general  council  to  restore  it  by  a 
verdict  on  doubtful  points  of  faith,  the  English  monarch, 
undisturbed  by  doubt  or  scruple,  broke  off  from  Rome,  and 
destroyed  the  traditions  of  centralization  by  taking  the  ecclesi- 
astic jurisdiction  into  his  own  hands  and  stopping  its  passage 
of  the  seas.  In  the  new  movement  of  the  time,  England 
tended  to  become  a  petty  papacy,  still  unreformed ;  Europe 
sought  a  universal  church  reformed.  Neither  aim  admitted 
of  realization.  To  repudiate  the  supreme  pontiff,  and  substi- 
tute a  civil  head,  involved  a  fatal  breach  in  the  sacerdotal 
system,  and  carried  with  it  inevitable  departures  from  the 
integrity  of  Catholic  dogma;  so  that  reformation  was  found 
inseparable  from  schism.  And  when  no  council,  acknowledged 
as  universal,  was  called  to  give  authoritative  settlement,  ar- 
rangements ad  interim  became  consolidated,  provisional  rights 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  27 

grew  into  prescriptive ;  with  the  spectacle  of  variety,  and 
the  taste  of  freedom,  the  idea  of  unity  faded  away,  till 
the  co-existence  of  two  churches  within  one  land  and  one 
Christendom  passed  into  a  necessity,  and  reformation  proved 
impossible  without  a  schism.  But,  notwithstanding  this  par- 
tial approximation  of  the  English  and  the  Continental  move- 
ments, the  traces  remain  indelible  that  their  point  of  departure 
was  from  opposite  ends.  In  its  origin  and  earliest  traditions, 
in  the  basis  of  its  constitution  and  worship,  the  Church  of 
England  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Protestantism ;  it 
is  but  the  "Westminster  Catholic  Church  instead  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  Authoritative  doctrine,  sacramental  grace, 
sacerdotal  mediation,  are  all  retained ;  and  throughout  the 
whole  of  Henry's  reign,  while  the  new  laws  were  working 
themselves  into  habits,  the  seven  sacraments,  the  communion 
in  one  kind,  the  Ave  Maria,  the  invocation  of  saints,  with  the 
doctrines  of  transubstantiation  and  purgatory,  remained  within 
the  circle  of  recognized  orthodoxy.  The  impelling  and  regu- 
lative idea  of  the  whole  change  was  that  of  a  nationalization 
of  Catholicism.  This  original  ascendency  of  the  national  over 
the  theological  feeling  was  never  lost ;  and  though  channels 
were  more  and  more  opened,  through  the  sympathies  of  exiles 
and  the  intercourse  of  scholars,  for  the  infusion  of  Continen- 
tal notions,  yet  the  form  given  to  the  Church  rendered  it  not 
very  susceptible  to  the  new  learning  ;  whose  admission,  so  far 
as  it  took  place,  was  rather  induced  by  political  conception 
than  made  in  the  interests  of  universal  truth.  The  present 
Anglicans  represent  the  first  type  of  the  English  schism  ; 
and  the  High  Church  in  general  embodies  the  distinguishing 
national  sentiment  of  the  Reformation  in  this  country,  as  com- 
pared with  the  cosmopolitan  character  of  the  Continental  re- 
ligious change.  Doctrine  is  universal,  administration  and 
jurisdiction  are  local.  Where  the  former  becomes  the  bond 
of  sympathy,  as  among  the  Evangelic  Protestants,  it  unites 
men  together  by  ties  that  are  irrespective  of  the  limits  of 
country,  and  subordinates  special  patriotisms  to  the  interests 
of  a  more  comprehensive  fraternity.  Where  the  latter  be- 


28  DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

come  the  objects  of  zeal,  a  flavor  of  the  soil  mingles  itself 
with  the  sentiments  of  honor,  and  a  peculiar  loyalty  concen- 
trates itself  on  the  inner  circles  of  duty,  often  with  the  nar- 
rowest capacity  of  diffusion  beyond.  Hence  the  intensely 
English  feeling  which  has  always  prevailed  among  the  paro- 
chial—  especially  the  rural —  clergy  of  the  Establishment,  and 
the  people  who  form  their  congregations.  They  constitute 
the  very  core  of  our  insular  society,  and  the  retaining  centre 
of  our  historical  characteristics.  Their  admirations,  their 
prejudices,  their  virtues,  their  ambitions,  are  all  national. 
Their  interest  in  dogma  is  not  intellectually  active,  or  pro- 
vocative of  any  proselyting  zeal,  and  is  subservient  to  the 
practical  aim  of  giving  territorial  action  to  the  religious  in- 
stitutions under  their  charge.  Their  dealings  are  less  with 
the  individual's  solitary  soul,  than  with  the  several  social 
classes  in  their  mutual  relations ;  and  to  mediate  between 
the  gentry  and  the  poor,  to  keep  in  order  the  school,  the 
workhouse,  and  the  village  charities,  —  not  forgetting  the 
obligation  to  ward  off  Methodists  and  voluntaries,*  —  consti- 
tute the  approved  circle  of  clerical  duties.  Their  very  an- 
tipathies, unlike  those  of  Protestant  zealots,  are  less  theo- 
logical than  political ;  they  hate  Roman  Catholics  chiefly  as 
a  sort  of  foreigners,  who  have  no  proper  business  here,  and 
Dissenters  as  a  sort  of  rebels,  who  create  disturbance  with 
their  discontents ;  and  were  old  England  well  rid  of  them 
both,  the  heart  of  her  citizenship,  they  believe,  would  be 


*  The  zest  with  which  this  ecclesiastical  garrison-duty  is  sometimes  per- 
formed, hardly  comports  with  the  traditional  dignity  of  the  Anglican  gentle- 
man and  scholar.  We  remember  an  incident  which  occurred  in  a  village 
situated  among  the  hills  of  one  of  our  northern  dioceses.  On  a  fine  sum- 
mer evening  we  had  gone,  at  the  close  of  the  afternoon  service,  for  a  stroll 
through  the  fields  overlooking  the  valley.  When  we  had  walked  half  a  mile 
or  so,  an  extraordinary  din  arose  from  the  direction  of  the  village,  sounding 
like  nothing  human  or  instrumental,  larynx,  catgut,  or  brass,  though  occa- 
sionally mingled  with  an  undeniable  note  from  some  shouting  Stentor.  It 
was  evident,  through  the  trees,  that  a  crowd  was  collected  on  the  village  green ; 
and  not  less  so,  that  a  farmer  and  his  wife,  who  were  looking  on  from  a  stile 
hard  by,  understood  the  meaning  of  the  scene  below.  On  asking  what  all 
the  hubbub  was  about,  we  were  told  by  the  good  woman :  "  It 's  all  of  our 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  29 

sounder.  They  stand,  indeed,  in  a  curious  position,  pledged 
to  hold  a  proud  Anglican  isolation  between  two  cosmopolitan 
interests,  —  the  Popish  theocracy  and  the  Evangelical  dogma, 
—  refusing  obedience  to  Rome,  yet  declining  the  alliance  of 
foreign  Protestants.  Their  enmity  to  the  Papal  system  is 
quite  a  different  sentiment  from  that  which  animates  Exeter 
Hall ;  they  do  not  deny  the  absolute  legitimacy  of  the  elder 
corporation  in  general,  but  only  its  relative  legitimacy  here ; 
and  Scottish  ravings  against  it  as  "  Babylon "  and  "  Anti- 
christ "  offend  them  more  than  the  confessional  and  the  mass. 
Twice  in  their  history  —  under  the  Stuarts  and  in  our  own 
day  —  have  they  seemed  to  forget  their  destiny,  and  make 
overtures  to  the  Vatican ;  in  both  instances  it  was  when  Pu- 
ritanism had  threatened  to  take  possession  of  the  Church,  and 
reduce  it  to  a  federal  member  of  an  Evangelical  alliance  ; 
and  if  its  separate  integrity  were  in  peril,  they  had  rather 
fling  it  back  into  the  Apostolic  monarchy,  than  enroll  it  in  the 
Genevan  league.  But  the  first  real  sight  of  danger  from 
the  Papal  side  has  dissipated  this  reactionary  inclination,  and 
rekindled  the  instinct  of  local  independence.  Thus,  in  our 
Church,  ideal  interests  and  purely  religious  conceptions  have 
held  the  second  place  to  a  predominating  nationalism.  The 
Church  has  embodied  and  handed  down  the  leading  sentiment 
of  the  Tudor  times  ;  and  though  not  guiltless  of  share  in  many 
a  Stuart  treachery,  and  often  cruel  to  the  stiff-necked  recu- 
sant, has,  on  the  whole,  been  true  to  the  English  feeling,  that 

parson,  that's  banging  out  the  Methody  wi'  the  tae-board."  Being  cu- 
rious in  ecclesiastical  researches,  we  hastened  down  the  hill,  in  spite  of  the 
repulsion  of  increasing  noise.  On  one  side  of  the  green  was  a  deal  table, 
from  which  a  field-preacher  was  holding  forth  with  passionate  but  fruitless 
energy ;  for  on  the  other  side,  and  at  the  back  of  the  crowd,  was  the  paro- 
chial man  of  God,  who  had  issued  from  his  parsonage,  armed  with  its  largest 
tea-tray  and  the  hall-door  key,  and  was  battering  off  the  Japan  in  the  ser- 
vice of  orthodoxy.  No  military  music  could  more  effectually  neutralize  the 
shrieks  of  battle.  The  more  the  evangelist  bellowed,  the  faster  went  the 
parish  gong.  It  was  impossible  to  confute  such  a  "  drum  ecclesiastic." 
The  man  was  not  easily  put  down;  but  the  triumph  was  complete;  and  the 
"  Methody's  "  brass  was  fairly  beaten  out  of  the  field  by  the  Churchman's 
tin. 

3* 


80  DISTINCTIVE   TYPES    OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  Pope  was  too  great  a  priest,  and  Calvin  too  long  a 
preacher. 

The  reason  then  is  evident  why  the  Church  of  England 
cannot  be  referred  to  any  of  the  heads  of  classification  we 
have  given ;  neither  coinciding  with  Romanism,  nor  exem- 
plifying distinctively  any  of  the  tendencies  springing  succes- 
sively out  of  the  disintegration  of  Catholic  dogma.  It  arose 
out  of  an  ecclesiastical  revolt ;  other  communions,  out  of  a 
theological  aspiration.  Its  original  conception  involved  no 
serious  modification  of  belief,  no  invention  or  recovery  of 
strange  usages,  but  a  mere  separation  of  the  island  branch 
from  the  Roman  stem,  that  it  might  strike  root  and  be  as  a 
native  tree  of  life.  The  first  alterations  in  doctrine  were 
slight,  and  merely  incidental  to  this  primary  end:  and  the 
whole  amount  of  change,  instead  of  being  determined  by  the 
intellectual  dictatorship  of  a  Luther  or  a  Calvin,  was  the  il- 
logical result  of  social  forces,  seeking  the  equilibrium  of  prac- 
tical compromise.  The  phenomenon  therefore  which  we  ob- 
served in  the  elder  Church  is  repeated  in  this  younger  offshoot : 
the  several  elements  of  faith  co-exist  (though  in  greatly  spoiled 
proportions)  without  unity  or  natural  coherence ;  and  the 
English  Church,  as  the  depository  of  a  creed,  occupies  no 
place  in  the  history  of  the  human  mind :  its  individual  great 
men  must  be  put  here  or  there  in  the  records  of  thought,  with- 
out regard  to  the  accident  of  their  ecclesiastical  position.  The 
one  real  idea  which  has  permanently  inspired  its  clergy  and 
supporters  is  that  of  nationalism  in  religion.  To  the  time  of 
the  Restoration  they  attempted,  since  then  they  have  pretended, 
to  represent  the  nation  in  its  faith  and  worship.  Once,  their 
aim  appeared  to  be  a  noble  possibility,  struggling  still  and  un- 
realized, but  unrefuted.  Now,  thousands  of  Non-conformist 
chapels  proclaim  its  meaning  gone,  and  its  language  an  affec- 
tation and  an  insolence.  The  English  Church  has  become  an 
outer  reality  without  an  inner  idea. 

In  contrast  with  the  insular  feeling  predominant  in  the 
English  schism,  we  have  placed  the  cosmopolitan  zeal  of  the 
foreign  Puritanism.  With  this,  however,  was  combined  the 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OP    CHRISTIANITY.  31 

very  opposite  pole  of  sentiment,  —  a  certain  egoism  and  lone- 
liness in  religion,  from  which  have  flowed  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant characteristics  of  Protestantism.  Having  flung  away, 
as  miserable  quackeries,  the  hierarchical  prescriptions  for  souls 
oppressed  with  sin,  Luther  fell  back  upon  an  act  of  subjective 
faith  in  place  of  the  Church's  objective  works.  For  the  cor- 
poration he  substituted  the  individual :  whom  he  put  in  im- 
mediate, instead  of  mediate,  relation  with  Christ  and  God. 
The  Catholic's  unbloody  sacrifice  had  no  efficacy,  no  existence, 
without  the  priest ;  the  Lutheran's"  bloody  sacrifice  was  a 
realized  historical  fact,  to  be  appropriated  separately  by  every 
believer's  personal  trust.  It  was  not,  therefore,  the  Church 
which,  in  its  corporate  capacity,  occupied  the  prior  place,  and 
held  the  deposit  of  divine  grace  for  distribution  to  its  mem- 
bers ;  but  it  was  the  private  person  that  constituted  the  sacred 
unit,  and  a  plurality  of  believers  supplied  the  factors  of  the 
Church.  The  grace  which  before  could  not  reach  the  indi- 
vidual except  by  transit  through  accredited  officials,  now  be- 
came directly  accessible  to  each  soul :  and  only  after  it  had 
been  received  by  a  sufficient  number  to  form  a  society,  did 
the  conditions  of  spiritual  office  and  organization  exist.  This 
essential  dependence  of  the  whole  upon  the  parts,  instead  of 
the  parts  upon  the  whole,  is  the  most  radical  and  powerful 
peculiarity  of  Protestantism.  A  system  which  raises  the  in- 
dividual to  the  primaiy  place  of  religious  importance,  places 
him  nearest  to  the  supernatural  energy  of  God,  and  makes  him 
the  living  stone  without  which  temple  and  altar  cannot  be 
built,  naturally  draws  to  it  minds  of  marked  vigor,  and  trains 
men  in  self-subsisting  habits.  By  giving  scope  to  the  forces 
of  private  character,  it  sets  in  action  the  real  springs  of  healthy 
progress,  and  happily  with  such  intensity  as  to  defy  the  checks 
it  often  seeks  to  impose  in  later  moods  of  repentant  alarm. 
This  emancipation  of  the  personal  life  from  theocratic  control, 
at  first  achieved  in  connection  with  the  doctrine  of  justification, 
was  sure  to  present  itself  in  other  forms.  In  its  spiritual  ap- 
plication Protestant  egoism  assumes  the  shape  of  reliance  on 
inner  faith  ;  in  its  political,  of  voluntaryism;  in  its  intellect- 
ual, of  free  inquiry  and  private  judgment.  These  several 


32  DISTINCTIVE   TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

directions  may  be  taken  separately  or  together,  but  where,  as 
in  the  Church  of  England,  not  one  of  them  is  unambiguously 
marked,  the  very  principle  of  reformed  Christianity  is  unse- 
cured, and  Protestantism  is  present,  not  by  charter,  but  by 
social  accident.  Puritanism  everywhere — conforming  or  non- 
conforming,  English  or  Continental  —  exhibits  the  first  direc- 
tion; "Evangelical"  Dissenters  add  the  second;  while  Uni- 
tarians occupy  the  third,  —  not  perhaps  completely,  and  not 
altogether  exclusively,  but  characteristically  nevertheless.  For 
it  is  impossible  to  unite  the  orthodox  with  the  intellectual 
egoism.  So  long  as  the  inner  faith,  which  is  the  presumed 
condition  of  justification,  includes  a  controverted  doctrine,  like 
the  scheme  of  Atonement,  the  need  of  faith  imposes  a  limit 
on  the  right  of  judgment :  and  you  are  only  free  to  think  till 
you  show  symptoms  of  thinking  wrong.  But  when  the  sac- 
rificial Christianity  has  passed  into  the  ethical,  and  no  other 
condition  of  harmony  with  God  is  laid  down  than  purity  of 
affection  and  fidelity  of  will,  then  honest  thought  can  peril  no 
salvation,  and  the  devotion  of  the  intellect  to  truth  and  the 
heart  to  grace  is  a  divided  allegiance  no  more. 

It  was  for  some  time  doubtful  how  far  this  Protestant  egoism 
was  likely  to  go.  Luther  was  clear  and  positive  that  it  was 
faith  that  justified ;  and  fetching  this  doctrine  out  of  a  deep 
personal  experience,  he  paid  little  respect  to  any  one  who 
contradicted  it,  and  regulated  by  it  his  first  choice  of  religious 
authorities.  Led  by  this  clew,  he  arrived  at  results  strangely 
at  variance  with  modern  canons.  He  neither  accepted  as  a 
standard  the  whole  Bible,  nor  at  first  rejected  the  whole  tra- 
dition of  the  Church ;  loosely  attempting  to  reserve  the  Au- 
gustinian  authorities,  and  to  repudiate  the  Dominican.  When 
he  had  renounced  altogether  the  appeal  to  councils  and  patris- 
tic lore,  it  was  in  favor,  not  of  the  external  Scriptures,  uncon- 
ditionally taken  as  the  rule  of  faith,  but  of  the  private  spirit 
of  the  Christian  reader,  who  was  himself  "made  king  and 
priest,"  and  could  not  only  find  the  meaning,  but  pronounce 
upon  the  relative  worth,  of  the  canonical  books.  Accordingly, 
the  Reformer  made  very  free  with  portions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  with  the  more  Judaic  elements  of  the  New,  —  the 


DISTINCTIVE    TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  33 

Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  that  of  James,  and  the  Apocalypse ; 
and  avowedly  did  this  because  he  disliked  the  flavor  of  their 
doctrine,  and  felt  its  variance  from  the  Pauline  gospel.  He 
thus  tampered  with  his  court  before  he  brought  forward  his 
cause,  and  incapacitated  the  judges  whose  verdict  he  feared. 
In  short,  the  religious  life  of  his  own  soul  was  too  intense  and 
powerful  to  be  prevailed  over  by  any  written  word :  he  ap- 
propriated what  was  congenial,  and  threw  away  the  rest. 
Uneasy  relations  were  thus  established  between  the  subjective 
rule  of  faith  found  in  the  believer's  own  mind,  and  the  objec- 
tive standard  of  a  documentary  revelation :  they  were  soon 
constituted,  and  have  ever  since  remained  rival  authorities, 
commanding  the  allegiance  of  different  orders  of  minds.  The 
vast  majority  of  Protestants,  of  less  profound  and  tumultuous 
inner  life  than  Luther,  and  less  knowing  how  to  see  their  way 
through  it,  subsided  into  exclusive  recognition  of  the  sacred 
writings ;  denying  alike  the  regulative  authority  either  of 
church  councils  or  of  the  private  soul.  In  every  branch  and 
derivative  of  the  Genevan  Reformation,  throughout  the  whole 
range  of  both  the  Puritan  and  the  Arminian  Churches,  a  rig- 
orous Scripturalism  prevails  ;  and  the  Bible  is  used  as  a  code 
or  legislative  text-book,  which  yields,  on  mere  interpretation, 
verdicts  without  appeal  on  every  subject,  whether  doctrine  or 
duty,  of  which  it  speaks.  But  Luther's  spiritual  enthusiasm 
kindled  a  fire  that  he  scarce  could  quench  ;  and  while  he  him- 
self, flung  into  perpetual  conflicts  with  opponents,  was  obliged 
more  and  more  to  refer  to  evidence  external  to  his  personal- 
ity, others  had  learned  from  him  to  look  upon  their  own  souls 
as  the  theatre  of  conscious  strife  between  heaven  and  hell,  and 
to  recognize  the  voice  of  inspiration  there.  Carlstadt  was  the 
first  to  catch  the  flame  of  his  teacher's  burning  experience, 
and,  touched  by  prophetic  consciousness,  to  set  the  Spirit  above 
the  Word.  Luther,  so  often  recalled  from  the  tendencies  of 
his  own  turbulent  teaching  by  seeing  their  mischiefs  realized  in 
other  men,  instantly  turned  on  Carlstadt  with  his  overwhelm- 
ing scorn :  "  The  spirit  of  our  new  prophet  flies  very  high 
indeed :  't  is  an  audacious  spirit,  that  would  eat  up  the  Holy 
Ghost,  feathers  and  all.  '  The  Bible  ? '  —  sneer  these  fellows, 


34  DISTINCTIVE   TYPES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

—  'Bibel,  Bubel,  Babel!'  And  not  only  do  they  reject  the 
Bible  thus  contemptuously,  but  they  say  they  would  reject  God 
too,  if  he  were  not  to  visit  them  as  he  did  his  prophets."  Carl- 
stadt  had  got  hold  of  a  doctrine  that  was  too  much  for  his  ill- 
balanced  mind,  and  Luther  easily  destroyed  his  repute.  But 
a  principle  had  been  started  which  has  never  been  dormant 
since ;  the  very  principle  which  afterwards  constituted  the 
Society  of  Friends,  and  finds  its  best  exposition  in  the  writings 
of  their  admirable  apologist,  Barclay ;  and  which  in  our  times 
reappears  in  more  philosophic  guise,  and  fights  its  old  battles 
again  as  the  doctrine  of  religious  intuition.  No  period  of 
awakened  faith  and  sentiment  has  been  without  some  increas- 
ing tincture  of  this  persuasion  ;  and  under  modified  forms, 
with  more  or  less  admixture  of  the  ordinary  Puritan  elements, 
it  has  played  a  great  part  among  the  Quietists  in  France,  the 
Moravians  in  Germany,  and  the  Methodists  in  England.  In 
all  these,  far  as  they  are  from  being  committed  to  the  notion 
of  an  "inner  light,"  spiritualism  has  predominated  over  Scrip- 
turalism,  and  permanent  life  in  the  Spirit  has  engaged  the 
affections  more  than  the  transition  into  the  adoption  of  faith. 

In  this  endeavor  to  lay  out  the  ground-plan  of  modern 
Christian  development,  and  trace  upon  it  the  chief  lines  both  of 
psychological  and  of  historical  distinction,  our  design  is  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  a  series  of  sketches  exhibiting  the  sects  and 
types  of  religion  in  England.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  notice 
the  phenomena  present  here  and  to-day  without  referring  to 
their  antecedents  in  a  prior  age,  their  counterparts  in  other 
lands,  and  their  permanent  principles  in  human  nature ;  and 
if  our  chart  be  tolerably  correct,  our  future  course  will  be 
rendered  less  indeterminate  by  the  relations  and  points  of 
comparison  which  have  been  established.  The  age,  and  even 
the  hour,  is  teeming  with  new  interests  and  pregnant  auguries 
in  relation  to  the  highest  element  of  human  well-being.  From 
a  desire  to  approach  these  in  a  temper  of  just  and  reverential 
appreciation,  we  have  abstained  from  recording  the  first  im- 
pression of  them,  and  sought  rather,  by  a  preliminary  disci- 
pline, to  detect  some  criteria  by  which  prejudices  may  be 
checked,  tendencies  be  estimated,  and  criticism  acquire  a  clew. 


CHRISTIANITY  WITHOUT  PRIEST  AND 
WITHOUT  RITUAL. 


"  To  whom  coming,  as  unto  a  living  stone,  disallowed  indeed  of  men, 
but  chosen  of  God,  and  precious  ;  ye  also,  as  lively  stones,  are  built 
up  a  spiritual  house,  a  holy  priesthood,  to  offer  up  spiritual  sacrifices, 
acceptable  to  God  by  Jesus  Christ."  —  1  Peter  ii.  4,  5. 

THE  formation  of  human  society,  and  the  institution  of 
priesthood,  must  be  referred  to  the  same  causes  and  the  same 
date.  The  earliest  communities  of  the  world  appear  to  have 
had  their  origin  and  their  cement,  not  in  any  gregarious  in. 
stinct,  nor  in  mere  social  affections,  much  less  in  any  pruden- 
tial regard  to  the  advantages  of  co-operation,  but  in  a  binding 
religious  sentiment,  submitting  to  the  same  guidance,  and 
expressing  itself  in  the  same  worship.  As  no  tie  can  be 
more  strong,  so  is  none  more  primitive,  than  this  agreement 
respecting  what  is  holy  and  divine.  In  simple  and  patri- 
archal ages,  indeed,  when  the  feelings  of  veneration  had  not 
been  set  aside  by  analysis  into  a  little  corner  of  the  char, 
acter,  but  spread  themselves  over  the  whole  of  life,  and  mixed 
it  up  with  daily  wonder,  this  bond  comprised  all  the  forces 
that  can  suppress  the  selfish  and  disorganizing  passions,  and 
compact  a  multitude  of  men  together.  It  was  not,  as  at 
present,  to  have  simply  the  same  opinions  (things  of  quite 
modern  growth,  the  brood  of  scepticism)  ;  but  to  have  the 
same  fathers,  the  same  tradition,  the  same  speech,  the  same 
land,  the  same  foes,  the  same  priest,  the  same  God.  Nothing 


36  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

did  man  fear,  or  trust,  or  love,  or  desire,  that  did  not  belong, 
by  some  affinity,  to  his  faith.  Nor  had  he  any  book  to  keep 
the  precious  deposit  for  him  ;  and  if  he  had,  he  would  never 
have  thought  of  so  frail  a  vehicle  for  so  great  a  treasure.  It 
was  more  natural  to  put  it  into  structures  hollowed  in  the 
fast  mountain,  or  built  of  transplanted  rocks  which  only  a 
giant  age  could  stir ;  and  to  tenant  these  with  mighty  hie- 
rarchies, who  should  guard  their  sanctity,  and,  by  an  un- 
dying memory,  make  their  mysteries  eternal.  Hence,  the 
first  humanizer  of  men  was  their  worship ;  the  first  leaders 
of  nations,  the  sacerdotal  caste ;  the  first  triumph  of  art,  the 
colossal  temple ;  the  first  effort  to  preserve  an  idea  produced 
a  record  of  something  sacred ;  and  the  first  civilization  was, 
as  the  last  will  be,  the  birth  of  religion. 

The  primitive  aim  of  worship  undoubtedly  was,  to  act  upon 
the  sentiments  of  God ;  at  first,  by  such  natural  and  intelli- 
gible means  as  produce  favorable  impressions  on  the  mind 
of  a  fellow-man,  —  by  presents  and  persuasion,  and  whatever 
is  expressive  of  grateful  and  reverential  affections.  Abel,  the 
first  shepherd,  offered  the  produce  of  his  flock ;  Cain,  the 
first  farmer,  the  fruits  of  his  land ;  and  while  devotion  was 
so  simple  in  its  modes,  every  one  would  be  his  own  pontiff, 
and  have  his  own  altar.  But  soon,  the  parent  would  inevi- 
tably officiate  for  his  family ;  the  patriarch,  for  his  tribe. 
With  the  natural  forms  dictated  by  present  feelings,  tra- 
ditional methods  would  mingle  their  contributions  from  the 
past ;  postures  and  times,  gestures  and  localities,  once  indif- 
ferent, would  become  consecrated  by  venerable  habit;  and 
so  long  as  their  origin  was  unforgotten,  they  would  add  to 
the  significance,  while  they  lessened  the  simplicity,  of  wor- 
ship. Custom,  however,  being  the  growth  of  time,  tends  to 
a  tyrannous  and  bewildering  complexity :  forms,  originally 
natural,  then  symbolical,  end  in  being  arbitrary  ;  suggestive 
of  nothing,  except  to  the  initiated ;  yet,  if  connected  with 
religion,  so  sanctified  by  the  association,  that  it  appears  sacri- 
lege to  desist  from  their  employment ;  and  when  their  meaning 
is  lost,  they  assume  their  place,  not  among  empty  gesticula- 


AND    WITHOUT    KITUAL.  37 

tions,  but  among  the  mystical  signs  by  which  earth  com- 
munes with  heaven.  The  vivid  picture-writing  of  the  early 
worship,  filled  with  living  attitudes,  and  sketched  in  the 
freshest  colors  of  emotion,  explained  itself  to  every  eye,  and 
was  open  to  every  hand.  To  this  succeeded  a  piety,  which 
expressed  itself  in  symbolical  figures,  veiling  it  utterly  from 
strangers,  but  intelligible  and  impressive  still  to  the  soul  of 
national  tradition.  This,  however,  passed  again  into  a  lan- 
guage of  arbitrary  characters,  in  which  the  herd  of  men  saw 
sacredness  without  meaning ;  and  the  use  of  which  must  be 
consigned  to  a  class  separated  for  its  study.  Hence  the  origin 
of  the  priest  and  his  profession  ;  the  conservator  of  a  worship 
no  longer  natural,  but  legendary  and  mystical ;  skilful  enactor 
of  rites  that  spake  with  silent  gesticulation  to  the  heavens ; 
interpreter  of  the  wants  of  men  into  the  divine  language  of 
the  gods.  Not  till  the  powers  above  had  ceased  to  hold 
familiar  converse  with  the  earth,  and  in  their  distance  had  be- 
come deaf  and  dumb  to  the  common  tongue  of  men,  did  the 
mediating  priest  arise  ;  —  needed  then  to  conduct  the  finger- 
speech  of  ceremony,  whereby  the  desire  of  the  creature  took 
shape  before  the  eye  of  the  Creator. 

Observe,  then,  the  true  idea  of  PRIEST  and  RITUAL.  The 
Priest  is  the  representative  of  men  before  God  ;  commissioned 
on  behalf  of  human  nature  to  intercede  with  the  divine.  He 
bears  a  message  upwards,  from  earth  to  heaven ;  his  people 
being  below,  his  influence  above.  He  takes  the  fears  of  the 
weak,  and  the  cries  of  the  perishing,  and  sets  them  with  avail- 
ing supplication  before  Him  that  is  able  to  help.  He  takes 
the  sins  and  remorse  of  the  guilty,  and  leaves  them  with  ex- 
piating tribute  at  the  feet  of  the  averted  Deity.  He  guards 
the  avenues  that  lead  from  the  mortal  to  the  immortal,  and 
without  his  interposition  the  creature  is  cut  off  from  his 
Creator.  Without  his  mediation  no  transaction  between  them 
can  take  place,  and  the  spirit  of  a  man  must  live  as  an  out- 
law from  the  world  invisible  and  holy.  There  are  means  of 
propitiation  which  he  alone  has  authority  to  employ  ;  powers 
of  persuasion  conceded  to  no  other ;  a  mystic  access  to  the 


38  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

springs  of  divine  benignity,  by  outward  rites  which  his  ma- 
nipulation must  consecrate,  or  forms  of  speech  which  his  lips 
must  recommend.  These  ceremonies  are  the  implements  of 
his  office  and  the  sources  of  his  power ;  the  magic  by  Avhich 
he  is  thought  to  gain  admission  to  the  will  above,  and  really 
wins  rule  over  human  counsels  below.  As  they  are  supposed 
to  change  the  relation  of  God  to  man,  not  by  visible  or  natural 
operation,  not  (for  example)  by  suggestion  of  new  thoughts, 
and  excitement  of  new  dispositions  in  the  worshipper,  but  by 
secret  and  mysterious  agency,  they  are  simply  spells  of  a  dig- 
nified order.  Were  we  then  to  speak  with  severe  exactitude, 
we  should  say,  a  Ritual  is  a  system  of  consecrated  charms ; 
and  the  Priest,  the  great  magician  who  dispenses  them. 

So  long  as  any  idea  is  retained  of  mystically  efficacious 
rites,  consigned  solely  and  authoritatively  to  certain  hands, 
this  definition  cannot  be  escaped.  The  ceremonies  may  have 
rational  instruction  and  natural  worship  appended  to  them ; 
and  these  additional  elements  may  give  them  a  title  to  true 
respect.  The  order  of  men  appointed  to  administer  them 
may  have  other  offices  and  nobler  duties  to  perform,  render- 
ing them,  if  faithful,  worthy  of  a  just  and  reverential  attach- 
ment. But  in  so  far  as,  by  an  exclusive  and  unnatural 
efficacy,  they  bring  about  a  changed  relation  between  God 
and  man,  the  Ritual  is  an  incantation,  and  the  Priest  is  an 
enchanter. 

To  this  sacerdotal  devotion  there  necessarily  attach  cer- 
tain characteristic  sentiments,  both  moral  and  religious,  which 
give  it  a  distinctive  influence  on  human  character,  and  adapt 
it  to  particular  stages  of  civilization.  It  clearly  severs  the 
worshippers  by  one  remove  from  God.  He  is  a  Being,  ex- 
ternal to  them,  distant  from  them,  personally  unapproachable 
by  them ;  their  thought  must  travel  to  reach  the  Almighty ; 
they  must  look  afar  for  the  Most  Holy  ;  they  dwell  themselves 
within  the  finite,  and  must  ask  a  foreign  introduction  to  the 
Infinite.  He  is  not  with  them  as  a  private  guide,  but  in  the 
remoter  watch-towers  of  creation,  as  the  public  inspector  of 
their  life ;  not  present  for  perpetual  communion,  but  to  be 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  39 

visited  in  absence  by  stated  messages  of  form  and  prayer. 
And  that  God  dwells  in  this  cold  and  royal  separation  in- 
duces the  feeling,  that  man  is  too  mean  to  touch  him  ;  that  a 
consecrated  intervention  is  required,  in  order  to  part  Deity 
from  the  defiling  contact  of  humanity.  Why  else  am  I  re- 
stricted from  unlimited  personal  access  to  my  Creator,  and 
driven  to  another  in  my  transactions  with  him  ?  And  so,  in 
this  system,  our  nature  appears  in  contrast,  not  in  alliance, 
with  the  divine,  and  those  views  of  it  are  favored  which 
make  the  opposition  strong ;  its  puny  dimensions,  its  swift 
decadence,  its  poor  self-flatteries,  its  degenerate  virtues,  its 
giant  guilt,  become  familiar  to  the  thought  and  lips  ;  and  life, 
cut  off  from  sympathy  with  the  godlike,  falls  towards  the 
level  of  melancholy,  or  the  sink  of  epicurism,  or  the  abject- 
ness  of  vicarious  reliance  on  the  priest.  Worship,  too,  must 
have  for  its  chief  aim,  to  throw  off  the  load  of  ill ;  to  rid  the 
mind  of  sin  and  shame,  and  the  lot  of  hardship  and  sorrow  ; 
for  principally  to  these  disburdening  offices  do  priests  and 
rituals  profess  themselves  adapted  ;  —  and  who,  indeed,  could 
pour  forth  the  privacy  of  love,  and  peace,  and  trust,  through 
the  cumbrousness  of  ceremonies,  and  the  pompousness  of  a 
sacred  officer  ?  The  piety  of  such  a  religion  is  thus  a  refuge 
for  the  weakness,  not  an  outpouring  of  the  strength,  of  the 
soul :  it  takes  away  the  incubus  of  darkness,  without  shed- 
ding the  light  of  heaven ;  lifts  off  the  nightmare  horrors  of 
earth  and  hell,  without  opening  the  vision  of  angels  and  of 
God.  Nay,  for  the  spiritual  bonds  which  connect  men  with 
the  Father  above,  it  substitutes  material  ties,  a  genealogy  of 
sacred  fires,  a  succession  of  hallowed  buildings,  or  of  priests 
having  consecration  by  pedigree  or  by  manual  transmission  ; 
so  that  qualities  belonging  to  the  soul  alone  are  likened  to 
forces  mechanical  or  chemical;  sanctity  becomes  a  physical 
property ;  divine  acceptance  comes  by  bodily  catenation ;  re- 
generation is  degraded  into  a  species  of  electric  shock,  which 
one  only  method  of  experiment,  and  the  links  of  but  one 
conductor,  can  convey.  And,  in  fine,  a  priestly  system  ever 
abjures  all  aim  at  any  higher  perfection ;  boasts  of  being  im- 


40  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIKST 

mutable  and  unimprovable;  encourages  no  ambition,  breathes 
no  desire.  It  holds  the  appointed  methods  of  influencing 
Heaven,  on  which  none  may  presume  to  innovate ;  and  its 
functions  are  ever  the  same,  to  employ  and  preserve  the 
ancient  forms  and  legendary  spells  committed  to  its  trust. 
Hence  all  its  veneration  is  antiquarian,  not  sympathetic  or 
prospective ;  it  turns  its  back  upon  the  living,  and  looks 
straight  into  departed  ages,  bowing  the  head  and  bending  the 
knee ;  as  if  all  objects  of  love  and  devotion  were  there, 
not  here ;  in  history,  not  in  life  ;  as  if  its  God  were  dead,  or 
otherwise  imprisoned  in  the  Past,  and  had  bequeathed  to  its 
keeping  such  relics  as  might  yield  a  perpetual  benediction. 
Thus  does  the  administration  of  religion,  in  proportion  as  it 
possesses  a  sacerdotal  character,  involve  a  distant  Deity,  a 
mean  humanity,  a  servile  worship,  a  physical  sanctity,  and  a 
retrospective  reverence. 

Let  no  one,  however,  imagine  that  there  is  no  other  idea 
or  administration  of  religion  than  this  ;  that  the  priest  is  the 
only  person  among  men  to  whom  it  is  given  to  stand  between 
heaven  and  earth.  Even  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  introduce 
us  to  another  class  of  quite  different  order  ;  to  whom,  indeed, 
those  Scriptures  owe  their  own  truth  and  poAvcr,  and  perpe- 
tuity of  beauty  :  I  mean  the  PROPHETS  ;  whom  we  shall  very 
imperfectly  understand,  if  we  suppose  them  mere  historians, 
for  whom  God  had  turned  time  round  the  other  wray,  so  that 
they  spoke  of  things  future  as  if  past,  and  grew  so  dizzy  in 
their  use  of  tenses,  as  greatly  to  incommode  learned  gram- 
marians ;  or  if  we  treat  their  writings  as  scrap-books  of  Prov- 
idence, with  miscellaneous  contributions  from  various  parts 
of  duration,  sketches  taken  indifferently  from  any  point  of 
view  within  eternity,  and  put  together  at  random  and  without 
mark,  on  adjacent  pages,  for  theological  memories  to  identify  ; 
first,  a  picture  of  an  Assyrian  battle,  next,  a  holy  family  ;  now, 
of  the  captives  sitting  by  Euphrates,  then,  of  Paul  preaching 
to  the  Gentiles  ;  here,  a  flight  of  devouring  locusts,  and  there, 
the  escape  of  the  Christians  from  the  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem ;  a  portrait  of  Hezekiah,  and  a  view  of  Calvary  ;  a 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  41 

march  through  the  desert,  and  John  the  Baptist  by  the  Jor- 
dan ;  the  day  of  Pentecost,  and  the  French  Revolution ; 
Nebuchadnezzar  and  Mahomet ;  Caligula  and  the  Pope,  — 
following  each  other  with  picturesque  neglect  of  every  rela- 
tion of  time  and  place.  No,  the  Prophet  and  his  work  always 
indeed  belong  to  the  future ;  but  far  otherwise  than  thus. 
Meanwhile,  let  us  notice  how,  in  Israel,  as  elsewhere,  he 
takes  his  natural  station  above  the  priest.  It  was  Moses  the 
prophet  who  even  made  Aaron  the  priest.  And  who  cares 
now  for  the  sacerdotal  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  compared 
with  the  rest  ?  Who,  having  the  strains  of  David,  would  pore 
over  Leviticus,  or  would  weary  himself  with  Chronicles,  when 
he  might  catch  the  inspiration  of  Isaiah  ?  It  was  no  priest 
that  wrote,  "  Thou  desirest  not  sacrifice,  else  would  I  give  it ; 
thou  delightest  not  in  burnt-offering:  the  sacrifices  of  God 
are  a  broken  spirit ;  a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O  God, 
thou  wilt  not  despise."  It  was  no  pontifical  spirit  that  ex- 
claimed, "  Bring  no  more  vain  oblations ;  incense  is  an  abomi- 
nation to  me ;  the  new  moons  and  sabbaths,  the  calling  of 
assemblies,  I  cannot  away  with  ;  it  is  iniquity,  even  the  solemn 
meeting :  your  new  moons  and  your  appointed  feasts  my  soul 
hateth ;  they  are  a  trouble  unto  me ;  I  am  weary  to  bear 
them."  "  Wash  you,  make  you  clean."  Whatever  in  these 
venerable  Scriptures  awes  us  by  its  grandeur  and  pierces  us 
by  its  truth,  comes  of  the  prophets,  not  the  priests  ;  and  from 
that  part  of  their  writings,  too,  in  which  they  are  not  con- 
cerned with  historical  prediction,  but  with  some  utterance 
deeper  and  greater.  I  do  not  deny  them  this  gift  of  occa- 
sional intellectual  foresight  of  events.  And  doubtless  it  was 
an  honor  to  be  permitted  to  speak  thus  to  a  portion  of  the 
future,  and  of  local  occurrences  unrevealed  to  seers  less  privi- 
leged. But  it  is  a  glory  far  higher  to  speak  that  which  be- 
longs to  all  time,  and  finds  its  interpretation  in  every  place  ;  to 
penetrate  to  the  everlasting  realities  of  things ;  to  disclose, 
not  when  this  or  that  man  will  appear,  but  how  and  wherefore 
all  men  appear  and  quickly  disappear ;  to  make  it  felt,  not  in 
what  nook  of  duration  such  an  incident  will  happen,  but  from 
4* 


42  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT   PRIEST 

what  all-embracing  eternity  the  images  of  history  emerge  and 
are  swallowed  up.  In  this  highest  faculty  the  Hebrew  seers 
belong  to  a  class  scattered  over  every  nation  and  every 
period ;  which  Providence  keeps  ever  extant  for  human  good, 
and  especially  to  furnish  an  administration  of  religion  quite 
anti-sacerdotal.  This  class  we  must  proceed  to  characterize. 

The  Prophet  is  the  representative  of  God  before  men,  com- 
missioned from  the  Divine  nature  to  sanctify  the  human. 
He  bears  a  message  downwards,  from  heaven  to  earth ;  his 
inspirer  being  above,  his  influence  below.  He  takes  of  the 
holiness  of  God,  enters  with  it  into  the  souls  of  men,  and  heals 
therewith  the  wounds,  and  purifies  the  taint,  of  sin.  He  is 
charged  with  the  peace  of  God,  and  gives  from  it  rest  to  the 
weariness  and  solace  to  the  griefs  of  men.  Instead  of  carry- 
ing the  foulness  of  life  to  be  cleansed  in  heaven,  he  brings 
the  purity  of  heaven  to  make  life  divine.  Instead  of  inter- 
posing himself  and  his  mediation  between  humanity  and  Deity, 
he  destroys  the  whole  distance  between  them  ;  and  only  fulfils 
his  mission,  when  he  brings  the  finite  mind  and  the  infinite 
into  immediate  and  thrilling  contact,  and  leaves  the  creature 
consciously  alone  with  the  Creator.  He  is  one  to  whom  the 
primitive  and  everlasting  relations  between  God  and  man 
have  revealed  themselves,  stripped  of  every  disguise,  and 
bared  of  all  that  is  conventional ;  who  is  possessed  by  their 
simplicity,  mastered  by  their  solemnity ;  who  has  found  the 
secret  of  meeting  the  Holy  Spirit  within,  rather  than  without ; 
and  knows,  but  cannot  tell,  how,  in  the  strife  of  genuine  duty, 
or  in  moments  of  true  meditation,  the  Divine  immensity  and 
love  have  touched  and  filled  his  naked  soul ;  and  taught  him 
by  what  fathomless  Godhead  he  is  folded  round,  and  on  what 
adamantine  manhood  he  must  take  his  stand.  So  far  from 
separating  others  from  the  heavenly  communion  vouchsafed 
to  himself,  he  necessarily  believes  that  all  may  have  the  same 
godlike  consciousness  ;  burns  to  impart  it  to  them  ;  and  by  the 
vivid  light  of  his  own  faith  speedily  creates  it  in  those  who 
feel  his  influence,  drawing  out  and  freshening  the  faded  colors 
of  the  Divine  image  in  their  souls,  till  they  too  become  visibly 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  43 

the  seers  and  the  sons  of  God.  His  instruments,  like  the 
objects  of  his  mission,  are  human  ;  not  mysteries,  and  mum- 
meries, and  such  arbitrary  things,  by  which  others  may  pre- 
tend to  be  talking  with  the  skies ;  but  the  natural  language 
which  interprets  itself  at  once  to  every  genuine  man,  and 
goes  direct  to  the  living  point  of  every  heart.  An  earnest 
speech,  a  brave  and  holy  life,  truth  of  sympathy,  severity  of 
conscience,  freshness  and  loftiness  of  faith,  —  these  natural 
sanctities  are  his  implements  of  power;  and  if  heaven  be 
pleased  to  add  any  other  gifts,  still  are  they  weapons  all, — 
not  the  mere  tinsel  of  tradition  and  custom,  —  but  forged  in 
the  inner  workshop  of  our  nature,  where  the  fire  glows  be- 
neath the  breath  of  God,  framing  things  of  ethereal  temper. 
Thus  armed,  he  lays  undoubting  siege  to  the  world's  con- 
science ;  tears  down  every  outwork  of  pretence ;  forces  its 
strong-holds  of  delusion ;  humbles  the  vanities  at  its  centre, 
and  proclaims  it  the  citadel  of  God.  The  true  prophet  of 
every  age  is  no  believer  in  the  temple,  but  in  the  temple's 
Deity ;  trusts,  not  rites  and  institutions,  but  the  heart  and  soul 
that  fill  or  ought  to  fill  them  ;  if  they  speak  the  truth,  no  one 
so  reveres  them ;  if  a  lie,  they  meet  with  no  contempt  like 
his.  He  sees  no  indestructible  sanctuary  but  the  mind  itself, 
wherein  the  Divine  Spirit  ever  loves  to  dwell ;  and  whence  it 
will  be  sure  to  go  forth  and  build  such  outward  temple  as  may 
suit  the  season  of  Providence.  He  is  conscious  that  there  is 
no  devotion  like  that  which  comes  spontaneously  from  the 
secret  places  of  our  humanity,  no  orisons  so  true  as  those 
which  rise  from  the  common  platform  of  our  life.  He  de- 
sires only  to  throw  himself  in  faith  on  the  natural  piety  of 
the  heart.  Give  him  but  that,  and  he  will  find  for  man 
an  everlasting  worship,  and  raise  for  God  a  cathedral  worthy 
of  his  infinitude. 

It  is  evident  that  one  thoroughly  possessed  with  this  spirit 
could  never  be,  and  could  never  make,  a  priest ;  nor  frame  a 
ritual  for  priests  already  made.  He  is  destitute  of  the  ideas 
out  of  which  alone  these  things  can  be  created.  His  mission 
is  in  the  opposite  direction :  he  interprets  and  reveals  God  to 


44  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

men,  instead  of  interceding  for  men  with  God.  In  this  office 
sacerdotal  rites  have  no  function  and  no  place.  I  do  not  say 
that  he  must  necessarily  disapprove  and  abjure  them,  or  deny 
that  he  may  directly  sanction  them.  If  he  does,  however,  it 
is  not  in  his  capacity  of  prophet,  but  in  conformity  with  feel- 
ings which  his  proper  office  has  left  untouched.  His  tendency 
will  be  against  ceremonialism ;  and  on  his  age  and  position 
will  depend  the  extent  to  which  this  tendency  takes  effect. 
Usually  he  will  construct  nothing  ritual,  will  destroy  much, 
and  leave  behind  great  and  growing  ideas,  destructive  of  much 
more.  But  ere  we  quit  our  general  conception  of  a  prophet, 
let  us  notice  some  characteristic  sentiments,  moral  and  re- 
ligious, which  naturally  connect  themselves  with  his  faith ; 
comparing  them  with  those  which  belong  to  the  sacerdotal 
influence. 

In  tliis  faith,  God  is  separated  by  nothing  from  his  wor- 
shippers. He  is  not  simply  in  contact  with  them,  but  truly 
in  the  interior  of  their  nature ;  so  that  they  may  not  only 
meet  him  in  the  outward  providences  of  life,  but  bear  his 
spirit  with  them,  when  they  go  to  toil  and  conflict,  and  find  it 
still,  when  they  sit  alone  to  think  and  pray.  He  is  not  the 
far  observer,  but  the  very  present  help,  of  the  faithful  will. 
No  structure  made  with  hands,  nay,  not  even  his  own  ar- 
chitecture of  the  heaven  ,of  heavens,  contains  and  confines 
his  presence  :  were  there  any  dark  recess  whence  these  were 
hid,  the  blessed  access  would  be  without  hinderance  still ; 
and  the  soul  would  discern  him  near  as  its  own  identity.  No 
mean  and  ignoble  conception  can  be  entertained  of  a  mind 
which  is  thus  the  residence  of  Deity ;  —  the  shrine  of  the 
Infinite  must  have  somewhat  that  is  infinite  itself.  Thus,  in 
this  system,  does  our  nature  appear  in  alliance  with  the  Di- 
vine, not  in  contrast  with  it ;  inspired  with  a  portion  of  its 
holiness,  and  free  to  help  forward  the  best  issues  of  its  provi- 
dence. Human  life,  blessed  by  this  spirit,  becomes  a  minia- 
ture of  the  work  of  the  great  Ruler :  its  responsibilities,  its 
difficulties,  its  temptations,  become  dignified  as  the  glorious 
theatre  whereon  we  strive,  by  and  with  the  good  Spirit  of 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  45 

God,  for  the  masteiy  over  evil.  Worship,  issuing  from  a 
nature  and  existence  thus  consecrated,  is  not  the  casting  off 
of  guilt  and  terror,  but  the  glad  unburdening  of  love,  and 
trust,  and  aspiration,  the  simple  speaking  forth,  as  duty  is 
the  acting  forth,  of  the  divine  within  us ;  not  the  prostration 
of  the  slave,  but  the  embrace  of  the  child ;  not  the  plaint  of 
the  abject,  but  the  anthem  of  the  free.  Is  it  not  private, 
individual  ?  And  may  it  not  by  silence  say  what  it  will,  and 
intimate  the  precise  thing,  and  that  only,  which  is  at  heart  ?  — 
whence  there  grows  insensibly  that  firm  root  of  excellence, 
truth  with  one's  own  self.  The  priestly  fancy  of  an  hereditary 
or  lineal  sacredness  can  have  no  place  here.  The  soul  and 
God  stand  directly  related,  mind  with  mind,  spirit  with  spirit: 
from  our  moral  fidelity  to  this  relation,  from  the  jealousy  with 
which  we  guard  it  from  insult  or  neglect,  does  the  only  sanc- 
tity arise ;  and  herein  there  is  none  to  help  us,  or  give  a 
vicarious  consecration.  And,  finally,  the  spirit  of  God's  true 
prophet  is  earnestly  prospective ;  more  filled  with  the  con- 
ception of  what  the  Creator  will  make  his  world,  than  of 
what  he  has  already  made  it:  detecting  great  capacities,  it 
glows  with  great  hopes  ;  knowing  that  God  lives,  and  will 
live,  it  turns  from  the  past,  venerable  as  that  may  be,  and 
reverences  rather  the  promise  of  the  present,  and  the  glories 
of  the  future.  It  esteems  nothing  unimprovable,  is  replete 
with  vast  desires ;  and  amid  the  shadows  and  across  the  wilds 
of  existence  chases,  not  vainly,  a  bright  image  of  perfection. 
The  golden  age,  which  priests  with  their  tradition  put  into 
the  past,  the  prophet,  with  his  faith  and  truth,  transfers  into 
the  future ;  and  while  the  former  pines  and  muses,  the  latter 
toils  and  prays.  Thus  does  the  administration  of  religion, 
in  proportion  as  it  partakes  of  the  prophetic  or  anti-sacer- 
dotal character,  involve  the  ideas  of  an  interior  Deity,  a  noble 
humanity,  a  loving  worship,  an  individual  holiness,  and  a 
prospective  veneration. 

We  have  found,  then,  two  opposite  views  of  religion  :  that 
of  the  Priest  with  his  Ritual,  and  that  of  the  Prophet  with 
his  Faith.  I  propose  to  show  that  the  Church  of  England, 


46  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT   PRIEST 

in  its  doctrine  of  sacraments,  coincides  with  the  former  of 
these,  and  sanctions  all  its  objectionable  sentiments ;  and 
that  Christianity,  in  every  relation,  even  with  respect  to  its 
reputed  rites,  coincides  with  «the  latter. 

The  general  conformity  of  the  Church  of  England  Avith  the 
ritual  conception  of  religion  Avill  not  be  denied  by  her  own 
members.  Their  denial  will  be  limited  to  one  point :  they 
will  protest  that  her  formulas  of  doctrine  do  not  ascribe  a 
charmed  efficacy,  or  any  operation  upon  God,  to  the  two 
sacraments.  To  avoid  verbal  disputes,  let  us  consider  what 
we  are  to  understand  by  a  spell  or  charm.  The  name,  I  ap- 
prehend, denotes  any  material  object  or  outward  act,  the  pos- 
session or  use  of  which  is  thought  to  confer  safety  or  blessing, 
not  by  natural  operation,  but  by  occult  virtues  inherent  in 
it,  or  mystical  effects  appended  to  it.  A  mere  commemo- 
rative sign,  therefore,  is  not  a  charm,  nor  need  there  be  any 
superstition  in  its  employment :  it  simply  stands  for  certain 
ideas  and  memories  in  our  minds  ;  re-excites  and  freshens 
them,  not  otherwise  than  speech  audibly  records  them,  except 
that  it  summons  them  before  us  by  sight  and  touch,  instead  of 
sound.  The  effect,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  purely  natural,  by 
sequence  of  thought  on  thought,  till  the  complexion  of  the 
mind  is  changed,  and  haply  suffused  Avith  a  noble  glow.  But 
in  truth  it  is  not  fit  to  speak  of  commemorations,  as  things 
having  efficacy  at  all ;  as  desirable  observances,  under  whose 
action  we  should  put  ourselves,  in  order  to  get  up  certain 
good  dispositions  in  the  heart.  As  soon  as  we  see  them  ac- 
quiesced in,  with  this  dutiful  submission  to  a  kind  of  spiritual 
operation,  we  may  be  sure  they  are  already  empty  and  dead. 
An  expedient  commemoration,  deliberately  maintained  on  util- 
itarian principles,  for  the  sake  of  warming  cold  affections  by 
artificial  heat,  is  one  of  the  foolish  conceptions  of  this  mechan- 
ical and  sceptical  age.  It  is  quite  true,  that  such  influence  is 
found  to  belong  to  rites  of  remembrance  ;  but  only  so  long  as 
it  is  not  privately  looked  into,  or  greedily  contemplated  by 
the  staring  eye  of  prudence,  but  simply  and  unconsciously 
received.  No ;  commemorations  must  be  the  spontaneous 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  47 

fruit  and  outburst  of  a  love  already  kindled  in  the  soul,  not 
the  factitious  contrivance  for  forcing  it  into  existence.  They 
are  not  the  lighted  match  applied  to  the  fuel  on  an  altar  cold ; 
but  the  shapes  in  which  the  living  flame  aspires,  or  the  fretted 
lights  thrown  by  that  central  love  on  the  dark  temple-walls  of 
this  material  life. 

It  is  not  pretended  that  the  sacraments  are  mere  com- 
memorative rites  And  nothing,  I  submit,  remains,  but  that 
they  should  be  pronounced  charms.  It  is  of  little  purpose 
to  urge,  in  denial  of  this,  that  the  Church  insists  upon  the 
necessity  of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  recipient,  without  which 
no  benefit,  but  rather  peril,  will  accrue.  This  only  limits  the 
use  of  the  charm  to  a  certain  class,  and  establishes  a  pre- 
requisite to  its  proper  efficacy.  It  simply  conjoins  the  out- 
ward form  with  a  certain  state  of  mind,  and  gives  to  each  of 
these  a  participation  in  the  effect.  If  the  faith  be  insufficient 
without  the  ceremony,  then  some  efficacy  is  due  to  the  rite ; 
and  this,  being  neither  the  natural  operation  of  the  material 
elements,  nor  a  simple  suggestion  of  ideas  and  feelings  to  the 
mind,  but  mystical  and  preternatural,  is  no  other  than  a 
charmed  efficacy. 

Nor  will  the  statement,  that  the  effect  is  not  upon  God,  but 
upon  man,  bear  examination.  It  is  very  true,  that  the  ulti- 
mate benefit  of  these  rites  is  a  result  reputed  to  fall  upon  the 
worshipper  ;  —  regeneration,  in  the  case  of  baptism  ;  partici- 
pation in  the  atonement,  in  the  case  of  the  Lord's  Supper. 
But  by  what  steps  do  these  blessings  descend  ?  Not  by  those 
of  visible  or  perceived  causation  ;  but  through  an  express  and 
extraordinary  volition  of  God,  induced  by  the  ceremonial 
form,  or  taking  occasion  from  it.  The  sacerdotal  economy, 
therefore,  is  so  arranged,  that,  whenever  the  priest  dispenses 
the  water  at  the  font,  the  Holy  Spirit  follows,  as  in  instan- 
taneous compliance  with  a  suggestion ;  and  whenever  he 
spreads  his  hands  over  the  elements  at  the  communion,  God 
immediately  establishes  a  preternatural  relation,  not  subsisting 
the  moment  before,  between  the  substances  on  the  table  and 
the  souls  of  the  faithful  communicants :  so  that  every  partaker 


48  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

receives,  either  directly  or  through  supernatural  increase  of 
faith,  some  new  share  in  the  merits  of  the  cross.  Whatever 
subtleties  of  language  then  may  be  employed,  it  is  evidently 
conceived  that  the  first  consequence  of  these  forms  takes  place 
in  heaven ;  and  that  on  this  depends  whatever  benediction 
they  may  bi'ing :  nor  can  a  plain  understanding  frame  any 
other  idea  of  them  than  this  ;  first,  they  act  upwards,  and 
suggest  something  to  the  mind  of  God,  who  then  sends  down 
an  influence  on  the  mind  of  the  believer.  From  this  concep- 
tion no  figures  of  speech,  no  ingenious  analogies,  can  deliver 
us.  Do  you  call  the  sacraments  "  pledges  of  grace  "  ?  A 
pledge  means  a  promise ;  and  how  a  voluntary  act  of  ours,  or 
the  priest's,  can  be  a  promise  made  to  us  by  the  Divine  Being, 
it  is  not  easy  to  understand.  Do  you  call  them  "  seals  of 
God's  covenant,"  —  the  instrument  by  which  he  engages  to 
make  over  its  blessings  to  the  Christian,  like  the  signature  and 
completion  of  a  deed  conveying  an  estate  ?  It  still  perplexes 
us  to  think  of  a  service  of  our  own  as  an  assurance  received 
by  us  from  Heaven.  And  one  would  imagine  that  the  Divine 
promise,  once- given,  were  enough,  without  this  incessant  bind- 
ing by  periodical  legalities.  If  it  be  said,  "  The  renewal  of 
the  obligation  is  needful  for  us,  and  not  for  him  "  ;  then  call 
the  rites  at  once  and  simply,  our  service  of  self-dedication,  the 
solemn  memorial  of  our  vows.  And  in  spite  of  all  metaphors, 
the  question  recurs,  Does  the  covenant  stand  without  these 
seals,  or  are  they  essential  to  give  possession  of  the  privileges 
conveyed  ?  Are  they,  by  means  preternatural,  procurers  of 
salvation  ?  Have  they  a  mystical  action  towards  this  end  ? 
If  so,  we  return  to  the  same  point ;  they  have  a  charmed 
efiicacy  on  the  human  soul. 

In  order  to  establish  this,  nothing  more  is  requisite  than  a 
brief  reference  to  the  language  of  the  Articles  and  Liturgical 
services  of  the  Church  respecting  Baptism  and  the  Com- 
munion. 

Baptism  is  regarded,  throughout  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  as  the  instrument  of  regeneration  :  not  simply  as  its 
sign,  of  which  the  actual  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  inde- 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  49 

pendent ;  but  as  itself  and  essentially  the  means  or  indispen- 
sable occasion  of  the  washing  away  of  sin.  That  this  is 
regarded  as  a  mystical  and  magical,  not  a  natural  and  spirit- 
ual effect,  is  evident  from  the  alleged  fact  of  its  occurrence 
in  infants,  to  whom  the  rite  can  suggest  nothing,  and  on 
whom,  in  the  course  of  nature,  it  can  leave  no  impression. 
Yet  it  is  declared  of  the  infant,  after  the  use  of  the  water, 
"  Seeing  now,  dearly  beloved  brethren,  that  this  child  is  re- 
generate" &c. :  at  the  commencement  of  the  service  its  aim 
is  said  to  be  that  God  may  "  grant  to  this  child  that  thing 
which  by  nature  he  cannot  have,"  — "  would  wash  him  and 
sanctify  him  with  the  Holy  Ghost,"  that  he  may  be  "  deliv- 
ered from  God's  wrath."  Nothing,  indeed,  is  so  striking  in 
this  office  of  the  national  Church,  as  its  audacious  trifling 
with  solemn  names,  denoting  qualities  of  the  soul  and  will ; 
the  ascription  of  spiritual  and  moral  attributes,  not  only  to 
the  child  in  whom  they  can  yet  have  no  development,  but 
even  to  material  substances ;  the  frivolity  with  which  engage- 
ments with  God  are  made  by  deputy,  and  without  the  con- 
sent or  even  existence  of  the  engaging  will.  Water  is  said 
to  possess  sanctity,  for  "  the  mystical  washing  away  of  sin." 
Infants,  destitute  of  any  idea  of  duty  or  obligation  to  be  re- 
sisted or  obeyed,  are  said  to  obtain  "  remission  of  their  sins  "  ; 
—  to  "  renounce  the  Devil  and  all  his  works,  the  vain  pomp 
and  glory  of  the  world " ;  "  steadfastly  to  believe "  in  the 
Apostles'  Creed,  and  to  be  desirous  of  "baptism  into  this 
faith."  Belief,  desire,  resolve,  are  acts  of  some  one's  mind : 
the  language  of  this  service  attributes  them  to  the  personality 
of  the  infant  (/renounce,  /believe,  /desire)  ;  yet  there  they 
cannot  possibly  exist.  If  they  are  to  be  understood  as  af- 
firmed by  the  godfathers  and  godmothers  of  themselves,  the 
case  is  not  improved :  for  how  can  one  person's  state  of  faith 
and  conscience  be  made  the  condition  of  the  regeneration  of 
another  ?  What  intelligible  meaning  can  be  attached  to  these 
phrases  of  sanctity  applied  to  an  age  not  responsible?  In 
what  sense,  and  by  what  indication,  are  these  children  holier 
than  others?  And  with  what  reason,  if  all  this  be  Chris- 
5 


50  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT   PRIEST 

tianity,  can  we  blame  the  Pope  for  sprinkling  holy  water  on 
the  horses  ?  The  service  appears  little  better  than  a  profane 
sacerdotal  jugglery,  by  which  material  things  are  impregnated 
with  divine  virtues,  moral  and  spiritual  qualities  of  the  mind 
are  sported  with,  the  holy  spirit  of  God  is  turned  into  a 
physical  mystery,  and  the  solemnity  of  personal  responsibility 
is  insulted. 

That  a  superstitious  value  is  attributed  to  the  details  of 
the  baptismal  form,  in  the  Church  of  England,  appears  from 
certain  parts  of  the  service  for  the  private  ministration  of  the 
rite.  If  a  child  has  been  baptized  by  any  other  lawful  min- 
ister than  the  minister  of  the  parish,  strict  inquiries  are  to 
be  instituted  by  the  latter  respecting  the  correctness  with 
which  the  ceremony  has  been  performed ;  and  should  the 
prescribed  rules  have  been  neglected,  the  baptism  is  invalid, 
and  must  be  repeated.  Yet  great  solicitude  is  manifested, 
lest  danger  should  be  incurred  by  an  unnecessary  repetition 
of  the  sacrament :  to  guard  against  which,  the  minister  is  to 
give  the  following  conditional  invitation  to  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
saying,  in  his  address  to  the  child,  "  If  thou  art  not  already 
baptized,  I  baptize  thee,"  &c.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that 
the  Church  mentions  as  one  of  the  essentials  of  the  service, 
the  omission  of  which  necessitates  its  repetition,  the  use  of 
the  formula,  "  In  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son, 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  By  this  rule,  every  one  of  the  apos- 
tolic baptisms  recorded  in  Scripture  must  be  pronounced  in- 
valid ;  and  the  Church  of  England,  were  it  possible,  would 
perform  them  again :  for  in  no  instance  does  it  appear  that 
the  Apostles  employed  either  this  or  even  any  equivalent 
form  of  words. 

That  this  sacrament  is  regarded  as  an  indispensable  channel 
of  grace,  and  positively  necessary  to  salvation,  is  clear  from 
the  provision  of  a  short  and  private  form,  to  be  used  in  cases 
of  extreme  danger.  The  prayers,  and  faith,  and  obedience, 
and  patient  love,  of  parents  and  friends,  —  the  dedication  and 
heart-felt  surrender  of  their  child  to  God,  the  profound  appli- 
cation of  their  anxieties  and  grief  to  their  conscience  and 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  51 

inward  life,  —  all  this,  we  are  told,  will  be  of  no  avail,  with- 
out tliM  water  and  the  priest.  Archbishop  Laud  says:  "  That 
baptism  is  necessary  to  the  salvation  of  infants  (in  the  or- 
dinary way  of  the  Church,  without  binding  God  to  the  use 
and  means  of  that  sacrament,  to  which  he  hath  bound  us),  is 
expressed  in  St.  John  iii.,  '  Except  a  man  be  bom  of  water,' 
&c.  So,  no  baptism,  no  entrance ;  nor  can  infants  creep  in, 
any  other  ordinary  way."  *  Bishop  Bramhall  says  :  "  Wilful 
neglect  of  baptism  we  acknowledge  to  be  a  damnable  sin ; 
and,  without  repentance  and  God's  extraordinary  mercy,  to 
exclude  a  man  from  all  hope  of  salvation.  But  yet,  if  such 
a  person,  before  his  death,  shall  repent  and  deplore  his  neg- 
lect of  the  means  of  grace,  from  his  heart,  and  desire  with 
all  his  soul  to  be  baptized,  but  is  debarred  from  it  invincibly, 
we  do  not,  we  dare  not,  pass  sentence  of  condemnation  upon 
him ;  not  yet  the  Roman  Catholics  themselves.  The  ques- 
tion then  is,  whether  the  want  of  baptism,  upon  invincible 
necessity,  do  evermore  infallibly  exclude  from  heaven."  f 
Singular  struggle  here,  between  the  merciless  ritual  of  the 
priest,  and  the  relenting  spirit  of  the  man  ! 

The  office  of  Communion  contains  even  stronger  marks  of 
the  same  sacerdotal  superstitions ;  and,  notwithstanding  the 
Protestant  horror  entertained  of  the  mass,  approaches  it  so 
nearly,  that  no  ingenuity  can  exhibit  them  in  contrast.  Near 
doctrines,  however,  like  near  neighbors,  are  known  to  quarrel 
most. 

The  idea  of  a  physical  sanctity,  residing  in  solid  and  liquid 
substances,  is  encouraged  by  this  service.  The  priest  conse- 
crates the  elements,  by  laying  his  hand  upon  all  the  bread, 
and  upon  every  flagon  containing  the  wine  about  to  be  dis- 
pensed. If  an  additional  quantity  is  required,  this  too  must 
be  consecrated  before  its  distribution.  And  the  sacredness 
thus  imparted  is  represented  as  surviving  the  celebration  of 

*  Conference  with  Fisher,  §  15  ;  quoted  in  Tracts  for  the  Times,  No.  76. 
Catena  Patrum,  No.  II.  p.  18. 

t  Of  Persons  dying  without  Baptism,  p.  979  ;  quoted  in  toe.  ctt.  pp. 
19,20, 


52  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

the  Supper,  and  residing  in  the  substances  as  a  permanent 
quality :  for  in  the  disposal  of  the  bread  and  wine  that  may 
remain  at  the  close  of  the  sacramental  feast,  a  distinction  is 
made  between  the  consecrated  and  the  unconsecrated  portion 
of  the  elements  ;  the  former  is  not  permitted  to  quit  the 
altar,  but  is  to  be  reverently  consumed  by  the  priest  and  the 
communicants ;  the  latter  is  given  to  the  curate.  What  the 
particular  change  may  be,  which  the  prayer  and  manipulation 
of  the  minister  are  thought  to  induce,  it  is  by  no  means  easy 
to  determine ;  nor  would  the  discovery,  perhaps,  reward  our 
pains.  It  is  certainly  conceived,  that  they  cease  to  be  any 
longer  mere  bread  and  wine,  and  that  with  them  thence- 
forth co-exist,  really  and  substantially,  the  body  and  blood  of 
Christ.  Respecting  this  Real  Presence  with  the  elements, 
there  is  no  dispute  between  the  Romish  and  the  English 
Church ;  both  unequivocally  maintain  it :  and  the  only  ques- 
tion is,  respecting  the  Real  Absence  of  the  original  and  cu- 
linary bread  and  wine ;  the  Roman  Catholic  believing  that 
these  substantially  vanish,  and  are  replaced  by  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ ;  the  English  Protestant  conceiving  that  they 
remain,  but  are  united  with  the  latter.  The  Lutheran,  no 
less  than  the  British  Reformed  Church,  has  clung  tenaciously 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  real  presence  in  the  Eucharist.  Luther 
himself  declares  :  "  I  would  rather  retain,  with  the  Romanists, 
only  the  body  and  blood,  than  adopt,  with  the  Swiss,  the 
bread  and  wine,  without  the  real  body  and  blood  of  Christ." 
The  catechism  of  our  Church  affirms  that  "  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ  are  verily  and  indeed  taken  and  received  by 
the  faithful  in  the  Lord's  Supper."  And  this  was  not  in- 
tended to  be  figuratively  understood,  of  the  spiritual  use  and 
appropriation  to  which  the  faith  and  piety  of  the  receiver 
would  mentally  convert  the  elements :  for  although  here  the 
body  of  Christ  is  only  said  to  be  "  taken  "  (making  it  the  act 
of  the  communicant),  yet  one  of  the  Articles  speaks  of  it  as 
"given"  (making  it  the  act  of  the  officiating  priesf),  and  im- 
plying the  real  presence  before  participation.  However 
anxious,  indeed,  the  clergy  of  the  "  Evangelical "  school  may 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  53 

be  to  disguise  the  fact,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  their 
Church  has  always  maintained  a  supernatural  change  in  the 
elements  themselves,  as  well  as  in  the  mind  of  the  receiver. 
Cosin,  Bishop  of  Durham,  says,  "  We  own  the  union  between 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  and  the  elements,  whose  use 
and  office  we  hold  to  be  changed  from  what  it  was  before  "  ; 
"  we  confess  the  necessity  of  a  supernatural  and  heavenly 
change,  and  that  the  signs  cannot  become  sacraments  but  by 
the  infinite  power  of  God."  * 

In  consistency  with  this  preparatory  change,  a  charmed 
efficacy  is  attributed  to  the  subsequent  participation  in  the 
elements.  Even  the  body  of  the  communicant  is  said  to  be 
under  their  influence :  "  Grant  us  to  eat  the  flesh  of  thy 
dear  Son,  and  drink  his  blood,  that  our  sinful  bodies  may  be 
made  clean  through  his  body,  and  our  souls  washed  through 
his  most  precious  blood " ;  and  the  unworthy  recipients  are 
said  "  to  provoke  God  to  plague  them  with  divers  diseases 
and  sundry  kinds  of  death."  Lest  the  worshipper,  by  pre- 
senting himself  in  an  unqualified  state,  should  "  do  nothing 
else  than  increase  his  damnation,"  the  unquiet  conscience  is 
directed  to  resort  to  the  priest,  and  receive  the  benefit  of  ab- 
solution before  communicating.  Can  we  deny  to  the  Oxford 
divines  the  merit  (whatever  it  may  be)  of  consistency  with 
the  theology  of  their  Church,  when  they  applaud  and  recom- 
mend, as  they  do,  the  administration  of  the  Eucharist  to  in- 
fants, and  to  persons  dying  and  insensible  ?  Indeed,  it  is 
difficult  to  discover  why  infant  Communion  should  be  thought 
more  irrational  than  infant  Baptism.  If,  as  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  show,  the  primary  action  of  these  ceremonies  is  con- 
ceived to  be  on  God,  not  on  the  mind  of  their  object,  why 
should  not  the  Divine  blessing  be  induced  upon  the  young 
and  the  unconscious,  as  well  as  on  the  mature  and  capable 
soul?  And  were  any  further  evidence  required  than  I  have 
hitherto  adduced,  to  show  on  whom  the  Communion  is  con- 


*  History  of  Popish  Transubstantiation,  Chap.  IV.  ;  printed  in  the  Tracts 
for  the  Times,  No.  XXVII.  pp.  14, 15. 
5* 


54  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

ceived  to  operate  in  the  first  instance,  it  would  surely  be 
afforded  by  this  clause  in  the  Service :  by  not  partaking, 
"  Consider  how  great  an  injury  ye  do  unto  God" 

The  only  thing  wanted  to  complete  this  sacerdotal  system, 
is  to  obtain  for  a  certain  class  of  men  the  corporate  posses- 
sion, and  exclusive  administration,  of  these  essential  and  holy 
mysteries.  This  our  Church  accomplishes  by  its  doctrine  of 
Apostolical  Succession ;  claiming  for  its  ministers  a  lineal 
official  descent  from  the  Apostles,  which  invests  them,  and 
them  alone  within  this  realm,  with  divine  authority  to  pro- 
nounce absolution  or  excommunication,  and  to  administer  the 
Sacraments.  They  are  thus  the  sole  guardians  of  the  chan- 
nels of  the  Divine  Spirit  and  its  grace,  and  interpose  them- 
selves between  a  nation  and  its  God.  "  Receive  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  says  the  Service  for  Ordination  of  Priests,  "  for  the 
office  and  work  of  a  priest  in  the  Church  of  God,  now  com- 
mitted unto  thee  by  the  imposition  of  hands.  Whose  sins 
thou  dost  forgive,  they  are  forgiven  ;  and  whose  sins  thou  dost 
retain,  they  are  retained."  "They  only,"  says  the  present 
Bishop  of  Exeter,  "  can  claim  to  rule  over  the  Lord's  house- 
hold, whom  he  has  himself  placed  over  it ;  they  only  are  able 
to  minister  the  means  of  grace,  —  above  all,  to  present  the 
great  commemorative  sacrifice,  —  whom  Christ  has  appointed, 
and  whom  he  has  in  all  generations  appointed  in  unbroken 
succession  from  those,  and  through  those,  whom  he  first  or- 
dained. '  Ambassadors  from  Christ '  must,  by  the  very  force 
of  the  term,  receive  credentials  from  Christ :  '  stewards  of  the 
mysteries  of  God '  must  be  intrusted  with  those  mysteries  by 
him.  Remind  your  people,  that  in  the  Church  only  is  the 
promise  of  forgiveness  of  sins  ;  and  though,  to  all  who  truly 
repent,  and  sincerely  believe,  Christ  mercifully  grants  forgive- 
ness, yet  he  has,  in  an  especial  manner,  empowered  his  minis- 
ters to  declare  and  pronounce  to  his  people  the  absolution  and 
remission  of  their  sins :  '  Whosesoever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are 
remitted  unto  them  ;  and  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are 
retained.'  This  was  the  awful  authority  given  to  his  first 
ministers,  and  in  them,  and  through  them,  to  all  their  sue- 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  55 

cessors.  This  is  the  awful  authority  we  have  received,  and 
that  we  must  never  be  ashamed  nor  afraid  to  tell  the  people 
that  we  have  received. 

"Having  shown  to  the  people  your  commission,  show  to 
them  how  our  own  Church  has  framed  its  services  in  accord- 
ance with  that  commission.  Show  this  to  them  not  only  in 
the  Ordinal,  but  also  in  the  Collects,  in  the  Communion  Ser- 
vice, in  the  Office  of  the  Visitation  of  the  Sick ;  show  it,  es- 
pecially, in  that  which  continually  presents  itself  to  their  no- 
tice, but  is  commonly  little  regarded  by  them ;  show  it  in  the 
very  commencement  of  Morning  and  Evening  Prayer,  and 
make  them  understand  the  full  blessedness  of  that  service,  in 
which  the  Church  thus  calls  on  them  to  join.  Let  them  see 
that  there  the  minister  authoritatively  pronounces  God's 
pardon  and  absolution  to  all  them  that  truly  repent,  and  un- 
feignedly  believe  Christ's  holy  Gospel ;  that  he  does  this,  even 
as  the  Apostles  did,  with  the  authority  and  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  our  Lord  himself,  who,  in  commissioning  his  Apos- 
tles, gave  this  to  be  the  never-failing  assurance  of  his  co- 
operation in  their  ministry :  '  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even 
unto  the  end  of  the  world ' ;  a  promise  which,  of  its  very 
nature,  was  not  to  be  fulfilled  to  the  persons  of  those  whom 
he  addressed,  but  to  their  office,  to  their  successors  therefore 
in  that  office,  ( even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.'  Lastly, 
remind  and  warn  them  of  the  awful  sanction  with  which  our 
Lord  accompanied  his  mission,  even  of  the  second  order  of  the 
ministers  whom  he  appointed :  '  He  that  heareth  you,  heareth 
me ;  and  he  that  despiseth  you,  despiseth  me ;  and  he  that 
despiseth  me,  despiseth  him  that  sent  me.'  "  That  this  high 
dignity  may  be  clearly  understood  to  belong  in  this  country 
only  to  the  Church  of  England,  the  Bishop  proposes  the 
question,  "  What,  then,  becomes  of  those  who  are  not,  or 
continue  not,  members  of  that  (visible)  Church  ?  "  and  replies 
to  it  by  saying,  that  though  he  "judges  not  them  that  are 
without,"  yet  "  he  who  wilfully  and  in  despite  of  due  warning, 
or  through  recklessness  and  worldly-mindedness,  sets  at  naught 
its  ordinances,  and  despises  its  ministers,  has  no  right  to 


56  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

promise  to  himself  any  share  in  the  grace  which  they  are 
appointed  to  convey."  *  "  Why,"  says  one  of  the  Oxford 
divines,  who  here  undeniably  speaks  the  genuine  doctrine  of 
his  Church, —  "  Why  should  we  talk  so  much  of  an  Establish- 
ment, and  so  little  of  an  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  ?  Why 
should  we  not  seriously  endeavor  to  impress  our  people  with 
this  plain  truth,  that,  by  separating  themselves  from  our  com- 
munion, they  separate  themselves  not  only  from  a  decent, 
orderly,  useful  society,  but  from  THE  ONLY  CHURCH  IN 

THIS  REALM  WHICH  HAS  A  RIGHT  TO  BE  QUITE  SURE 
THAT  SHE  HAS  THE  LORD'S  BODY  TO  GIVE  TO  HIS  PEO- 
PLE ?  "  f 

Of  course  this  divine  authority  has  been  received  through 
the  Church  of  Rome,  so  abominable  in  the  eyes  of  all  Evan- 
gelical clergymen  ;  and  through  many  an  unworthy  link  in 
the  broken  chain.  The  Holy  Spirit,  it  is  acknowledged,  has 
passed  through  many,  on  whom,  apparently,  it  was  not  pleased 
to  rest ;  and  the  right  to  forgive  sins  been  conferred  by  those 
who  seemed  themselves  to  need  forgiveness.  A  writer  in 
the  Oxford  Tracts  observes  :  "  Nor  even  though  we  may  admit 
that  many  of  those  who  formed  the  connecting  links  of  this 
holy  chain  were  themselves  unworthy  of  the  high  charge 
reposed  in  them,  can  this  furnish  us  with  any  solid  ground 
for  doubting  or  denying  their  power  to  exercise  that  legiti- 
mate authority  with  which  they  were  duly  invested,  of  trans- 
mitting the  sacred  gift  to  worthier  followers."  \ 

In  its  doctrine  of  Sacraments,  then,  and  in  that  of  eccle- 
siastical authority  and  succession,  the  Church  of  England  is 
thoroughly  imbued  with  the  sacerdotal  character.  It  doubt- 
less contains  far  better  elements  and  nobler  conceptions  than 
those  which  it  has  been  my  duty  to  exhibit  now ;  and  sol- 
emnly insists  on  faith  of  heart,  and  truth  of  conscience,  and 
Christian  devotedness  of  life,  as  well  as  on  the  observance  of 

*  Bishop   of   Exeter's    Charge,   delivered  at  his  Triennial  Visitation  in 
August,  September,  and  October,  1836,  pp.  44  -  47. 
t  Tracts  for  the  Times,  No.  IV.  p.  5. 
t  Ibid.,  No.  V.  pp.  9,  10. 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  57 

its  ritual ;  with  the  external  it  unites  the  internal  condition  of 
sanctification.  But  insisting  on  the  theory  of  a  mystic  efficacy 
in  the  Christian  rites,  it  necessarily  fails  to  reconcile  these 
with  each  other :  and  hence  the  opposite  parties  within  its 
pale ;  the  one  magnifying  faith  and  personal  spirituality,  the 
other  exalting  the  sacraments  and  ecclesiastical  communion. 
They  represent  respectively  the  two  constituent  and  clashing 
powers,  which  met  at  the  formation  of  the  English  Church, 
and  of  which  it  effected  the  mere  compromise,  not  the  recon- 
ciliation ;  I  mean,  the  priestliness  of  Rome,  and  the  prophetic 
spirit  of  the  Reformers.  Never,  since  apostolic  days,  did 
Heaven  bless  us  with  truer  prophet  than  Martin  Luther.  It 
was  his  mission  (no  modern  man  had  ever  greater)  to  substi- 
tute the  idea  of  personal  faith  for  that  of  sacerdotal  reliance. 
And  gloriously,  with  bravery  and  truth  of  soul  amid  a  thou- 
sand hinderances,  did  he  achieve  it.  But  though,  ever  since, 
the  priests  have  been  down,  and  faith  has  been  up,  yet  did 
the  hierarchy  unavoidably  remain,  and  insisted  that  something 
should  be  made  of  it,  and  at  least  some  colorable  terms  pro- 
posed. Hence,  every  reformed  church  exhibits  a  coalition 
between  the  new  and  the  old  ideas :  and  combined  views  of 
religion,  which  must  ultimately  prove  incompatible  with  each 
other ;  the  formal  with  the  spiritual ;  the  idea  of  worship  as 
a  means  of  propitiating  God,  with  the  conception  of  it  as  an 
expression  of  love  in  man ;  the  notion  of  Church  authority 
with  that  of  individual  freedom ;  the  admission  of  a  license 
to  think,  with  a  prohibition  of  thinking  wrong.  In  our  na- 
tional Church  the  old  spirit  was  ascendant  over  the  new, 
though  long  forced  into  quiescence  by  the  temper  of  modern 
times.  Now  it  is  attempting  to  reassert  its  power,  not  with- 
out strenuous  resistance.  Indeed,  the  present  age  seems 
destined  to  end  the  compromise  between  the  two  principles, 
from  the  union  of  which  Protestantism  assumed  its  estab- 
lished forms.  The  truce  seems  everywhere  breaking  up :  a 
general  disintegration  of  churches  is  visible ;  tradition  is  ran- 
sacking the  past  for  claims  and  dignities,  and  canvassing 
present  timidity  for  fresh  authority,  to  withstand  the  wild 


58  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

forces  born  at  the  Reformation,  and  hurrying  us  fast  into  an 
unknown  future. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  primitive  Chi'istianity ;  which,  I 
submit,  is  throughout  wholly  anti-sacerdotal. 

Surely  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  general  spirit  of  our 
Lord's  personal  life  and  ministry  was  that  of  the  Prophet, 
not  of  the  Priest ;  tending  directly  to  the  disparagement  of 
whatever  priesthood  existed  in  his  country,  without  visibly 
preparing  the  substitution  of  anything  at  all  analogous  to  it. 
The  sacerdotal  order  felt  it  so ;  and,  with  the  infallible  instinct 
of  self-preservation,  they  watched,  they  hated,  they  seized, 
they  murdered  him.  The  priest  in  every  age  has  a  natural 
antipathy  to  the  prophet,  dreads  him  as  kings  dread  revolution, 
and  is  the  first  to  detect  his  existence.  The  solemn  moment 
and  the  gracious  words  of  Christ's  first  preaching  in  Nazareth, 
struck  with  fate  the  temple  in  Jerusalem.  To  the  old  men 
of  the  village,  to  the  neighbors  who  knew  his  childhood,  and 
companions  who  had  shared  its  rambles  and  its  sports,  he 
said,  with  the  quiet  flush  of  inspiration  :  "  The  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  the  poor:  he  hath  sent  me  to  heal  the  broken- 
hearted, to  preach  deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  recover- 
ing of  sight  to  the  blind;  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are 
bruised,  to  preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord."  The 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  in  Galilee  !  speaking  with  the  peasantry, 
dwelling  in  villages,  and  wandering  loose  and  where  it  listeth 
among  the  hills  !  This  would  never  do,  thought  the  white- 
robed  Levites  of  the  Holy  City ;  it  would  be  as  a  train  of 
wildfire  in  the  temple.  And  were  they  not  right?  When 
it  was  revealed  that  sanctity  is  no  thing  of  place  and  time, 
that  a  way  is  open  from  earth  to  heaven,  from  every  field  or 
mountain  trod  by  human  feet,  and  through  every  roof  that 
shelters  a  human  head ;  that,  amid  the  crowd  and  crush  of 
life,  each  soul  is  in  personal  solitude  with  God,  and  by  speech 
or  silence  (be  they  but  true  and  loving)  may  tell  its  cares  and 
find  its  peace  ;  that  a  divine  allegiance  might  cost  nothing, 
but  the  strife  of  a  dutiful  will  and  the  patience  of  a  filial 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  59 

heart,  —  how  could  any  priesthood  hope  to  stand?  See  how 
Jesus  himself,  when  the  temple  was  close  at  hand,  and  the 
sunshine  dressed  it  in  its  splendor,  yet  withdrew  his  prayers 
to  the  midnight  of  Mount  Olivet.  He  entered  those  courts 
to  teach,  rather  than  to  worship ;  and  when  there,  he  is  felt 
to  take  no  consecration,  but  to  give  it ;  to  bring  with  him  the 
living  spirit  of  God,  and  spread  it  throughout  all  the  place. 
When  evening  closes  his  teachings,  and  he  returns  late  over 
the  Mount  to  Bethany,  did  he  not  feel  that  there  was  more  of 
God  in  the  night-breeze  on  his  brow,  and  the  heaven  above 
him,  and  the  sad  love  within  him,  than  in  the  place  called 
"  Holy "  which  he  had  left  ?  And  when  he  had  knocked  at 
the  gate  of  Lazarus  the  risen  and  become  his  guest,  —  when, 
after  the  labors  of  the  day,  he  unburdened  his  spirit  to  the 
affections  of  that  family,  and  spake  of  things  divine  to  the 
sisters  listening  at  his  feet,  —  did  they  not  feel,  as  they  retired 
at  length,  that  the  whole  house  was  full  of  God,  and  that  there 
is  no  sanctuary  like  the  shrine,  not  made  with  hands,  within 
us  all  ?  In  childhood,  he  had  once  preferred  the  temple  and 
its  teachings  to  his  parents'  home :  now,  to  his  deeper  expe- 
rience, the  temple  has  lost  its  truth ;  while  the  cottage  and 
the  walks  of  Nazareth,  the  daily  voices  and  constant  duties 
of  this  life,  seem  covered  with  the  purest  consecration.  True, 
he  vindicated  the  sanctity  of  the  temple,  when  he  heard  within 
its  enclosure  the  hum  of  traffic  and  the  chink  of  gain,  and 
would  not  have  the  house  of  prayer  turned  into  a  place  of 
merchandise :  because  in  this  there  was  imposture  and  a  lie, 
and  Mammon  and  the  Lord  must  ever  dwell  apart.  In 
nothing  must  there  be  mockery  and  falsehood ;  and  while 
the  temple  stands,  it  must  be  a  temple  true. 

Our  Lord's  whole  ministry,  then,  (to  which  we  may  add 
that  of  his  Apostles,)  was  conceived  in  a  spirit  quite  opposite 
to  that  of  priesthood.  A  missionary  life,  without  fixed  lo- 
cality, without  form,  without  rites ;  with  teaching  free,  oc- 
casional, and  various,  with  sympathies  ever  with  the  people, 
and  a  strain  of  speech  never  marked  by  invective,  except 
against  the  ruling  sacerdotal  influence ;  —  all  these  characters 


60  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

proclaim  him,  purely  and  emphatically,  the  Prophet  of  the 
Lord.  It  deserves  notice  that,  unless  as  the  name  of  his 
enemies,  the  word  "  PRIEST"  (Ifpfvs)  never  occurs  in  either 
the  historical  or  epistolary  writings  of  the  New  Testament, 
except  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  And  there  its  applica- 
tion is  not  a  little  remarkable.  It  is  applied  to  Christ  alone  ; 
it  is  declared  to  belong  to  him  only  after  his  ascension  ;  it  is 
said  that,  while  on  earth,  he  neither  was,  nor  could  be,  a 
priest ;  and  if  it  is  admitted  that  he  holds  the  office  in  heaven, 
this  is  only  to  satisfy  the  demand  of  the  Hebrew  Christians 
for  some  sacerdotal  ideas  in  their  religion,  and  to  reconcile 
them  to  having  no  priest  on  earth.  The  writer  acknowledges 
one  great  pontiff  in  the  world  above,  that  the  whole  race  may 
be  superseded  in  the  world  below ;  and  banishes  priesthood 
into  invisibility,  that  men  may  never  see  its  shadow  more. 
All  the  terms  of  office  which  are  given  to  the  first  preachers 
of  the  Gospel  and  superintendents  of  churches,  —  as  Deacon, 
Elder  or  Presbyter,  Overseer  or  Bishop,  —  are  lay  terms,  be- 
longing previously,  not  to  ecclesiastical,  but  to  civil  life ;  an 
indication,  surely,  that  no  analogy  was  thought  to  exist  be- 
tween the  Apostolic  and  the  Sacerdotal  relations.*  I  shall, 
no  doubt,  be  reminded  of  the  words,  in  which  our  Lord  is 
supposed  to  have  given  their  commission  to  his  first  repre- 
sentatives :  "  Whatsoever  ye  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in 
heaven ;  and  whatsoever  ye  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed 
in  heaven  " ;  and  shall  be  asked  whether  this  does  not  con- 
vey to  them  and  their  successors  an  official  authority  to 

*  Archbishop  Whately,  speaking  of  the  word  Ifpfvs  and  its  meaning, 
says  :  "  This  is  an  office  assigned  to  none  under  the  Gospel  scheme,  except 
the  ONE  great  High-Priest,  of  whom  the  Jewish  priests  were  types."  (Ele- 
ments of  Logic.  Appendix  :  Note  on  the  word  "  Priest.")  Of  the  "  Gos- 
pel scheme"  this  is  quite  true  ;  of  the  Clmrcli-of -England  scheme  it  is  not. 
There  lies  before  me  Duport's  Greek  version  of  the  Prayer-Book  and  Offices 
of  the  Anglican  Church  :  and  turning  to  the  Communion  Service,  I  find  the 
officiating  clergyman  called  if  pens  throughout.  The  absence  of  this  word 
from  the  records  of  the  primitive  Gospel,  and  its  presence  in  the  Prayer-Book, 
is  perfectly  expressive  of  the  difference  in  the  spirit  of  the  two  systems  ;  — 
the  difference  between  the  Church  with,  and  the  "  Christianity  without 
Priest." 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  61 

forgive  sins,  and  dispense  the  decrees  of  the  unseen  world. 
I  reply  briefly  :  — 

1st.  That  the  power  here  granted  does  not  relate  to  the 
dispensations  of  the  future  life,  but  solely  to  what  would  be 
termed,  in  modern  language,  the  allotment  of  church-mem- 
bers/tip. The  previous  verse  proves  this,  furnishing  as  it  does 
a  particular  case  of  the  general  authority  here  assigned.  It 
directs  the  Apostles  under  what  circumstances  they  are  to 
remove  an  offender  from  a  Christian  society,  and  treat  him  as 
an  unconverted  man,  as  a  heathen  man  and  a  publican. 
Having  given  them  their  rule,  he  freely  trusts  the  application 
of  it  to  them :  and  being  about  to  retire  erelong  from  per- 
sonal intervention  in  the  affairs  of  his  kingdom,  he  assures 
them  that  their  decisions  shall  be  his,  and  that  he  may  be 
considered  as  adopting  in  heaven  their  determinations  upon 
earth.  He  simply  "  consigns  to  his  Apostles  discretionary 
power  to  direct  the  affairs  of  his  Church,  and  superintend  the 
diffusion  of  the  glad  tidings :  they  may  bind  and  loose,  that 
is,  open  and  shut  the  door  of  admission  to  their  community, 
as  their  judgment  may  determine;  employing  or  rejecting 
applicants  for  the  missionary  office ;  dissociating  from  their 
assemblies  obstinate  delinquents  ;  receiving  with  openness,  or 
dismissing  with  suspicion,  each  candidate  for  instruction,  ac- 
cording to  their  estimate  of  his  qualifications  and  motives." 

2dly.  It  is  to  be  observed,  that  there  is  no  appearance  of  any 
one  being  in  the  contemplation  of  our  Lord,  beyond  the  per- 
sons immediately  addressed.  Not  a  word  is  said  of  any  official 
successor  or  any  distant  age.  No  indication  is  afforded,  that 
any  idea  of  futurity  was  present  to  the  mind  of  Jesus  :  and 
a  title  of  perpetual  office,  an  instrument  creating  and  endow- 
ing an  endless  priesthood,  ought,  it  will  be  admitted,  to  be 
somewhat  more  explicit  than  this.  But  where  the  power 
has  been  successfully  claimed,  the  title  is  seldom  difficult  to 
prove. 

The  alleged  RITUAL  of  Christianity,  consisting  of  the  sacra- 
ments of  Baptism  and  the  Communion,  will  be  found  no  less 
destitute  of  sanction  from  the  Scriptures.  The  former  we 
fi 


62  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT   PRIEST 

shall  see  reason  to  regard  as  simply  an  initiatory  form,  ap- 
plicable only  to  Christian  converts,  and  limited  therefore  to 
adults  ;  the  latter  as  purely  a  commemoration  :  neither  there- 
fore having  any  sacramental  or  mystical  efficacy. 

For  baptism  it  is  impossible  to  establish  any  supernatural 
origin.  It  is  admitted  to  have  existed  before  the  Christian 
era ;  and  to  have  been  employed  by  the  Jews  on  the  admis- 
sion of  proselytes  to  their  religion.  It  is  certain  that  it  is 
not  an  enjoined  rite  in  the  Mosaic  dispensation  ;  and,  though 
prevalent  before  the  period  of  the  New  Testament,  is  nowhere 
enforced  or  recognized  in  the  writings  of  the  Old.  It  arose 
therefore  in  the  interval  between  the  only  two  systems  which 
Christians  acknowledged  to  be  supernatural ;  and  must  be 
considered  as  of  natural  and  human  origin,  invested,  thus  far, 
with  no  higher  authority  than  its  own  appropriateness  may 
confer.  There  seem  to  have  been  two  modes  of  construing 
the  symbol :  the  one  founded  on  the  cleansing  effect  of  the 
water  on  the  person  of  the  baptized  himself ;  the  other,  on 
the  appearance  of  his  immersion  (which  was  complete)  to  the 
eye  of  a  spectator.  The  former  was  an  image  of  the  heathen 
convert's  purification  from  a  foul  idolatry,  and  his  transition 
to  a  stainless  condition  under  a  divine  and  justifying  law. 
The  latter  represented  him,  when  he  vanished  in  the  stream, 
as  interred  to  this  world,  sunk  utterly  from  its  sight;  and 
when  he  reappeared,  as  emerging  or  born  again  to  a  better 
state  ;  the  "  old  man  "  was  "  buried  in  baptism,"  and  when 
he  "  rose  again,"  he  had  altogether  "  become  new."  *  The 

*  See  Rom.  vi.  2  -  4  :  "  How  shall  we,  that  are  dead  to  sin,  live  any 
longer  therein  ?  Know  ye  not,  that  so  many  of  us  as  were  baptized  into 
Jesus  Christ  were  baptized  into  his  death  ?  Therefore  we  are  buried  with 
him  by  baptism  into  death  ;  that,  like  as  Christ  was  raised  up  from  the  dead 
by  the  glory  of  the  Father,  even  so  we  also  should  walk  in  newness  of  life." 
Mr.  Locke  observes  of  "  St.  Paul's  argument,"  that  it  "  is  to  show  in  what 
state  of  life  we  ought  to  be  raised  out  of  baptism,  in  similitude  and  con- 
formity to  that  state  of  life  Christ  was  raised  into  from  the  grave."  See  also 
Col.  ii.  12  :  "Ye  are  ....  buried  with  him  in  baptism,  wherein  also  ye  are 
risen  with  him  through  the  faith  of  the  operation  of  God,  who  hath  raised 
him  from  the  dead."  The  force  of  the  image  clearly  depends  on  the  sinking 
and  rising  in  the  water. 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  63 

ceremony  then  was  appropriately  used  in  any  case  of  tran- 
sition from  a  depressed  and  corrupt  state  of  existence  to  a 
hopeful  and  blessed  one ;  from  a  false  or  imperfect  religion  to 
one  true  and  heavenly. 

But  it  will  be  said,  whatever  the  origin  of  baptism,  it  was 
employed  and  sanctioned  by  our  Lord,  who  commissioned 
his  Apostles  to  go  and  baptize  all  nations.  True  ;  but  is  there 
no  difference  between  the  adoption  of  a  practice  already  ex- 
tant, —  of  a  practice  which  was  as  much  the  mere  institutional 
dress  of  the  Apostles'  nation,  as  the  sandals  whose  dust  they 
were  to  shake  off  against  the  faithless  were  the  customary 
clothing  of  the  Apostles'  feet,  —  and  the  authoritative  appoint- 
ment of  a  sacrament  ?  They  were  going  forth  to  make  con- 
verts :  and  why  should  they  not  have  recourse  to  the  form 
familiarly  associated  with  the  act  ?  Familiar  association  rec- 
ommended its  adoption  in  that  age  and  clime  ;  and  the  ab- 
sence of  such  association  elsewhere  and  in  other  times  may 
be  thought  to  justify  its  disuse.  At  all  events,  a  ceremony 
thus  taken  up  must  be  presumed  to  retain  its  acquired  sense 
and  its  established  extent  of  application :  and  if  so,  baptism 
must  be  strictly  limited  to  the  admission  of  proselytes  from 
other  faiths.  This  accords  with  the  known  practice  of  the 
Apostles,  who  cannot  be  shown  to  have  baptized  any  but 
those  whom  they  had  personally,  or  by  their  missionaries, 
persuaded  to  become  Christians.  Not  a  single  case  of  the 
use  of  the  rite  with  children  can  be  adduced  from  Scripture  ; 
and  the  only  argument  by  which  such  employment  of  it  is 
ever  justified  is  this :  that  a  household  is  said  to  have  been 
baptized,  and  all  nations  were  to  receive  the  offer  of  it ;  and 
that  the  household  may,  the  nations  must,  have  contained  chil- 
dren. It  is  evident  that  such  reasoning  could  never  have 
been  propounded,  unless  the  practice  had  existed  first,  and 
the  defence  had  been  found  afterwards. 

With  the  system  of  infant  baptism  vanish  almost  all  the 
ideas  which  the  prevalent  theology  has  put  into  the  rite  ;  and 
it  becomes  as  intelligible  and  expressive  to  one  who  believes 
in  the  good  capacities  of  human  nature,  as  to  those  who 


64  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

esteem  it  originally  depraved.  "  How  unmeaning,"  say  our 
Orthodox  opponents,  "  is  this  ceremony  in  Unitarian  hands, 
denying,  as  they  do,  the  doctrines  which  it  represents  !  Of 
what  regeneration  can  they  possibly  suppose  it  the  symbol,  if 
not  of  the  washing  away  of  that  hereditary  sin  which  they 
refuse  to  acknowledge  ?  for  when  the  infant  is  brought  to  the 
font,  he  can  as  yet  have  no  other  guilt  than  this."  I  reply, 
the  objection  has  no  force  except  against  the  use  of  infant 
baptism  in  our  churches,  —  which  I  am  not  anxious  to  defend ; 
but  of  course  those  Unitarians  who  employ  it  conceive  it  to 
be  the  token,  not  of  any  sentiments  which  they  reject,  but  of 
truths  and  feelings  which  they  hold  dear.  For  myself,  I 
believe,  with  our  opponents,  that  the  doctrine  of  original  sin 
and  the  practice  of  infant  baptism  do  belong  to  each  other, 
and  must  stand  or  fall  together  ;  and  therefore  deem  it  a  fact 
very  significant  of  the  Apostles'  theology,  that  no  infant  can 
be  shown  ever  to  have  been  "  brought  to  the  font "  by  these 
first  true  missionaries  of  Christianity.  And  as  to  the  new 
birth  which  baptism  (i.  e.  recent  and  genuine  discipleship  to 
Jesus)  may  give  to  the  maturely  convinced  Christian,  he  must 
have  a  great  deal  to  learn,  not  only  of  the  Hebrew  concep- 
tions and  language  in  relation  to  the  Messiah,  but  of  the 
spirituality  of  the  Gospel,  and  of  the  fresh  creations  of  char- 
acter which  it  calls  up,  who  can  be  much  puzzled  about  its 
meaning. 

In  Christian  baptism,  then,  we  have  no  sacrament  with 
mystic  power ;  but  an  initiatory  form,  possibly  of  consuetu- 
dinary obligation  only ;  but  if  enjoined,  applicable  exclusively 
to  proselytes,  and  misemployed  in  the  case  of  infants  ;  a  sign 
of  conversion,  not  a  means  of  salvation ;  confided  to  no  sa- 
cerdotal order,  but  open  to  every  man  fitted  to  give  it  an 
appropriate  use. 

I  turn  to  the  Lord's  Supper  ;  with  design  to  show  what  it 
is  not,  and  what  it  is.  It  is  not  a  mystery,  or  a  sacrament, 
any  more  than  it  is  an  expiatory  sacrifice.  To  persuade  us 
that  it  has  a  ritual  character,  we  are  first  assured  that  it  is 
clearly  the  successor  in  the  Gospel  to  the  Passover  under  the 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  65' 

Law.  Well,  even  if  it  were  so,  it  would  still  be  simply 
commemorative,  and  without  any  other  efficacy  than  a  festi- 
val, filled  with  great  remembrances,  and  inspired  with  re- 
ligious joy.  Such  was  the  Paschal  Feast  in  Jerusalem  ;  the 
annual  gathering  of  families  and  kindred,  a  sacred  carnival 
under  the  spring  sky  and  in  sight  of  unreaped  fields,  when 
the  memory  was  recalled  of  national  deliverance,  and  the  tale 
was  told  of  traditional  glories,  and  the  thoughts  brought  back 
of  bondage  reversed,  of  the  desert  pilgrimage  ended,  of  the 
promised  land  possessed.  The  Jewish  festival  was  no  more 
than  this ;  unless,  with  Archbishop  Magee  and  others,  we 
erroneously  conceive  it  to  be  a  proper  sacrifice.  So  that 
those  who  would  interpret  the  Lord's  Supper  by  the  Pass- 
over have  their  choice  between  two  views :  that  it  is  a  simple 
commemoration ;  or  that  it  is  an  expiatory  sacrifice :  in  the 
former  case  they  quit  the  Church  of  England ;  in  the  latter, 
they  fall  into  the  Church  of  Rome. 

But,  in  truth,  there  is  no  propriety  in  applying  the  name 
"  Christian  Passover  "  to  the  Communion.  The  notion  rests 
entirely  on  this  circumstance :  that  the  first  three  Evangelists 
describe  the  last  Supper  as  the  Paschal  Supper.  But  the  in- 
stitutional part  of  that  meal  was  over  before  the  cup  was  dis- 
tributed, and  the  repetition  of  the  act  enjoined.  Nor  is  there 
the  slightest  trace,  either  in  the  subsequent  Scriptures,  or  in 
the  earliest  history  of  the  Church,  that  the  Communion  was 
thought  to  bear  relation  to  the  Passover.  The  time,  the  fre- 
quency, the  mode,  of  the  two  were  altogether  different.  In- 
deed, when  we  observe  that  not  one  of  these  particulars  is 
prescribed  and  determined  by  our  Lord  at  all,  when  we  no- 
tice the  slight  and  transient  manner  in  which  he  drops  his 
wish  that  they  would  "  do  this  in  remembrance  of"  him,  when 
we  compare  these  features  of  the  account  with  the  elaborate 
precision  of  Moses  respecting  hours,  and  materials,  and  dates, 
and  places,  and  modes  in  the  establishment  of  the  Hebrew 
festivals,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  avoid  the  impression,  that 
we  are  reading  narrative,  not  law ;  an  utterance  of  personal 
affection,  rather  than  the  legislative  enactment  of  an  ever- 
6* 


66  CHRISTIANITY   WITHOUT   PRIEST 

lasting  institution.  However  this  may  be,  no  importance 
can  be  attached  to  the  reported  coincidence  in  the  time  of 
that  meal  with  the  day  of  Passover ;  for  the  Apostle  John, 
who  gives  by  far  the  fullest  account  of  what  happened  at 
that  table  (yet  never  mentions  the  institution  of  the  Supper), 
states  that  this  was  not  the  paschal  meal  at  all,  which  did 
not  occur,  he  says,  till  the  following  day  of  crucifixion. 

"  But,"  it  will  be  said,  "  the  Gospels  are  not  the  only  parts 
of  Scripture  whence  the  nature  of  the  Eucharist  may  be 
learned.  Language  is  employed  by  St.  Paul  in  reference  to 
it,  which  cannot  be  understood  of  a  mere  memorial,  and  im- 
plies that  awful  consequences  hung  on  the  worthy  or  unwor- 
thy participation  in  the  rite.  Does  he  not  even  say,  that  a 
man  may  '  eat  and  drink  damnation  to  himself,  not  discerning 
the  Lord's  body'?" 

The  passage  whence  these  words  are  cited  certainly  throws 
great  light  on  the  institution  of  which  we  treat ;  but  there 
must  be  a  total  disregard  to  the  whole  context  and  the  gen- 
eral course  of  the  Apostle's  reasoning  before  it  can  be  made 
to  yield  any  argument  for  the  mystical  character  of  the  rite. 
It  would  appear  that  the  Corinthian  church  was  in  the  habit 
of  celebrating  the  Lord's  Supper  in  a  way  Avhich,  even  if  it 
had  never  been  disgraced  by  any  indecorum,  must  have  struck 
a  modern  Christian  with  wonder  at  its  singularity.  The 
members  met  together  in  one  room  or  church,  each  bringing 
his  own  supper,  of  such  quantity  and  quality  as  his  opulence 
or  poverty  might  allow.  To  this  the  Apostle  does  not  object, 
but  apparently  considers  it  a  part  of  the  established  arrange- 
ment. But  these  Christians  were  divided  into  factions,  and 
had  not  learned  the  true  uniting  spirit  of  their  faith  ;  nor  do 
they  seem  to  have  acquired  that  sobriety  of  habit  and  sanc- 
tity of  mind  which  their  profession  ought  to  have  induced. 
When  they  entered  the  place  of  meeting,  they  broke  up  into 
groups  and  parties,  class  apart  from  class,  and  rich  deserting 
poor:  each  set  began  its  separate  meal,  some  indulging  in 
luxury  and  excess,  others  with  scarce  the  means  of  keeping 
the  commemoration  at  all ;  and,  infamous  to  tell,  the  blessed 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  67 

Supper  of  the  Lord  was  sunk  into  a  tavern  meal.  So  gross 
and  habitual  had  the  abuse  become,  that  the  excesses  had 
affected  the  health  and  life  of  these  guilty  and  unworthy  par- 
takers. They  had  made  no  distinction  between  the  Com- 
munion and  an  ordinary  repast,  had  lost  all  perception  of 
the  memorial  significance  of  their  meeting,  had  not  discrimi- 
nated or  "  discerned  the  Lord's  body  " ;  and  so  they  had  eaten 
and  drunk  judgment  (improperly  rendered  k'  damnation  "  in 
the  English  Version)  to  themselves ;  and  many  were  weak 
and  sickly  among  them,  and  many  even  slept.  Well  would 
it  be,  if  they  would  look  on  this  as  a  chastening  of  the  Lord ; 
in  which  case  they  might  take  warning,  and  escape  being  cast 
out  of  the  Church,  and  driven  to  take  their  chance  with  the 
unbelieving  and  heathen  world.  "  When  we  are  judged,  we 
are  chastened  of  the  Lord,  that  we  should  not  be  condemned 
with  the  world." 

In  order  to  remedy  all  this  corruption,  St.  Paul  reminds 
them,  that  to  eat  and  drink  under  the  same  roof,  in  the 
church,  does  not  constitute  proper  Communion ;  that,  to  this 
end,  they  must  not  break  up  into  sections,  and  retain  their 
property  in  the  food,  but  all  participate  seriously  together. 
He  directs  that  an  absolute  separation  shall  be  made  between 
the  occasions  for  satisfying  hunger  and  thirst,  and  those  for 
observing  this  commemorative  rite,  discriminating  carefully 
the  memorial  of  the  Lord's  body  from  everything  else.  He 
refers  them  all  to  the  original  model  of  the  institution,  the 
parting  meal  of  Christ  before  his  betrayal ;  and  by  this  ex- 
ample, as  a  criterion,  he  would  have  every  man  examine  him- 
self, and  after  that  pattern  eat  of  the  bread  and  drink  of  the 
cup.  Hence  it  appears,  — 

That  the  unworthy  partaker  was  the  riotous  Corinthian, 
who  made  no  distinction  between  the  sacred  Communion  and 
a  vulgar  meal : 

That  the  judgment  or  damnation  which  such  brought  on 
themselves,  was  sickliness,  weakness,  and  premature  but  nat- 
ural death: 

That  the  self-examination  which  the  Apostle  recommends 


68  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

to  the  communicant  is  a  comparison  of  his  mode  of  keeping 
the  rite  with  the  original  model  of  the  last  Supper : 

That  in  the  Corinthian  church  there  was  no  Priest,  or 
officiating  dispenser  of  the  elements  ;  and  that  St.  Paul  did 
not  contemplate  or  recommend  the  appointment  of  any  such 
person. 

The  Lord's  Supper,  then,  I  conclude,  was  and  is  a  simple 
commemoration.  Am  I  asked  :  "  Of  what  ?  Why,  accord- 
ing to  Unitarian  views,  the  death  on  the  cross  merits  the 
memorial  more  than  the  remaining  features  of  our  Lord's 
history,  —  more  even  than  the  death  of  many  a  noble  martyr, 
who  has  sealed  his  testimony  to  truth  by  like  self-sacrifice  "  ? 
The  answer  will  be  found  at  length  in  the  Lecture  on  the 
Atonement,  where  the  Scriptural  conceptions  of  Christ's 
death  are  expounded  in  detail.  Meanwhile,  it  is  sufficient 
to  recall  an  idea,  which  has  more  than  once  been  thrown 
out  during  this  course ;  that,  if  Jesus  had  taken  up  his 
Messianic  power  without  death,  he  would  have  remained  a 
Hebrew,  and  been  limited  to  the  people  amid  whom  he  was 
born.  He  quitted  his  mortal  personality,  he  left  this  fleshly 
tabernacle  of  existence,  and  became  immortal,  that  his  na- 
tionality might  be  destroyed,  and  all  men  drawn  in  as  sub- 
jects of  his  reign.  It  was  the  cross  that  opened  to  the 
nations  the  blessed  ways  of  life,  and  put  us  all  in  relations, 
not  of  law,  but  of  love,  to  him  and  God.  Hence  the  memo- 
rial of  his  death  celebrates  the  universality  and  spirituality  of 
the  Gospel ;  declares  the  brotherhood  of  men,  the  fatherhood 
of  providence,  the  personal  affinity  of  every  soul  with  God. 
That  is  no  empty  rite  which  overflows  with  these  concep- 
tions. 

Christianity,  then,  I  maintain,  is  without  Priest  and  with- 
out Ritual.  It  altogether  coalesces  with  the  prophetic  idea 
of  religion,  and  repudiates  the  sacerdotal.  Christ  himself 
was  transcendently  THE  PROPHET.  He  brought  down  God 
to  this  our  life,  and  left  his  spirit  amid  its  scenes.  The 
Apostles  were  prophets ;  they  carried  that  spirit  abroad,  re- 
vealing everywhere  to  men  the  sanctity  of  their  nature,  and 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  69 

the  proximity  of  their  heaven.  Nor  am  I  even  unwilling  to 
admit  an  apostolic  succession,  never  yet  extinct,  and  never 
more  to  be  extinguished.  But  then  it  is  by  no  means  a  rec- 
tilinear regiment  of  incessant  priests  ;  but  a  broken,  scattered, 
yet  glorious  race  of  prophets ;  the  genealogy  of  great  and 
Christian  souls,  through  whom  the  primitive  conceptions  of 
Jesus  have  propagated  themselves  from  age  to  age ;  mind 
producing  mind,  courage  giving  birth  to  courage,  truth  de- 
veloping truth,  and  love  ever  nurturing  love,  so  long  as  one 
good  and  noble  spirit  shall  act  upon  another.  Luther  surely 
was  the  child  of  Paul ;  and  what  a  noble  offspring  has  risen 
to  manhood  from  Luther's  soul,  whom  to  enumerate  were 
to  tell  the  best  triumphs  of  the  modern  world.  These  are 
Christ's  true  ambassadors ;  and  never  did  he  mean  any  fol- 
lower of  his  to  be  called  a  priest.  He  has  his  genuine  mes- 
senger, wherever,  in  the  Church  or  in  the  world,  there  toils 
any  one  of  the  real  prophets  of  our  race ;  any  one  who  can 
create  the  good  and  great  in  other  souls,  whether  by  truth  of 
word  or  deed,  by  the  inspiration  of  genuine  speech,  or  the 
better  power  of  a  life  merciful  and  holy. 

And  here,  my  friends,  with  my  subject  might  my  Lecture 
close,  were  it  not  that  we  are  assembled  now  to  terminate 
this  controversy ;  and  that  a  few  remarks  in  reference  to  its 
whole  course  and  spirit  seem  to  be  required. 

That  the  recent  aggression  upon  the  principles  of  Unita- 
rian Christianity  was  prompted  by  no  unworthy  motive,  in- 
dividual or  political,  but  by  a  zeal,  Christian  so  far  as  its 
spirit  is  disinterested,  and  unchristian  only  so  far  as  it  is  ex- 
clusive, has  never  been  doubted  or  denied  by  my  brother 
ministers  or  myself.  That  much  personal  consideration  and 
courtesy  have  been  evinced  towards  us  during  the  controversy, 
it  is  so  grateful  to  us  to  acknowledge,  that  we  must  only  re- 
gret the  theological  obstructions  in  the  way  of  that  mutual 
knowledge  which  softens  the  prejudices  and  corrects  the 
errors  of  the  closet.  From  such  errors,  the  lot  of  our  fallible 
nature,  we  are  deeply  aware  that  we  cannot  be  exempt,  and 


70  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT   PRIEST 

profoundly  wish  that,  by  others'  aid  or  by  our  own,  we  could 
discover  them.  Meanwhile,  we  do  not  feel  that  our  oppo- 
nents have  been  successful  in  the  offer  which  they  have  made, 
of  help  towards  this  end.  They  are  too  little  acquainted  with 
our  history  and  character,  and  have  far  too  great  a  horror  of 
us,  to  succeed  in  a  design  demanding  rather  the  benevo- 
lence of  sympathy  and  trust  than  that  of  antipathy  and 
fear.  Hence  have  arisen  certain  complaints  and  charges 
against  our  system  and  its  tendencies,  which,  having  been 
reiterated  again  and  again  in  the  Christ  Church  Lectures, 
and  scarcely  noticed  in  our  own,  claim  a  concluding  observa- 
tion or  two  now. 

1.  We  are  said  to  be  infidels  in  disguise,  and  our  system 
to  be  drifting  fast  towards  utter  unbelief.  At  all  events,  it  is 
said  we  make  great  advances  that  way. 

It  is  by  no  means  unusual  to  dismiss  this  charge  on  a  whirl- 
wind of  declamation,  designed  to  send  it  and  the  infidel  to 
the  greatest  possible  distance.  My  friend  who  delivered  the 
first  Lecture  noticed  it  in  a  far  different  spirit ;  and  in  a  dis- 
cussion where  truth  and  wisdom  had  any  chance,  his  reply 
would  have  prevented  any  recurrence  to  the  statement.  Let 
me  try  to  imitate  him  in  the  testimony  which  I  desire  to  add 
upon  this  point. 

Every  one,  I  presume,  who  disbelieves  anything,  is,  with 
respect  to  that  thing,  an  infidel.  Departure  from  any  prev- 
alent and  established  ideas  is  inevitably  an  approach  to  in- 
fidelity ;  the  extent  of  the  departure,  not  the  reasonableness 
or  propriety  of  it,  is  the  sole  measure  of  the  nearness  of  that 
approach ;  which,  however  wise  and  sober,  when  estimated 
by  a  true  and  independent  criterion,  will  appear,  to  persons 
strongly  possessed  by  the  ascendant  notions,  nothing  less 
than  alarming,  amazing,  awful.  In  short,  the  average  popu- 
lar creed  of  the  day  is  the  mental  standard,  from  which  the 
stadia  are  measured  off  towards  that  invisible,  remote,  nay, 
even  imaginary  place,  lodged  somewhere  within  chaos,  called 
utter  unbelief.  Christianity  at  first  was  blank  infidelity  ;  and 
disciples,  being  of  course  the  atheists  of  their  day,  were 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  71 

thought  a  fit  prey  for  the  wild  beasts  of  the  amphitheatre. 
Every  rejection  of  tradition,  again,  is  unbelief  with  respect 
to  it ;  and  to  those  who  hold  its  authority,  it  is  the  denial  of 
an  essential.  It  is  too  evident  to  need  proof,  that  the  average 
popular  belief  cannot  be  assumed,  by  any  considerate  per- 
son, as  a  standard  of  truth.  To  make  it  an  objection  against 
any  class  of  men,  that  they  depart  from  it,  is  to  prove  no 
error  against  them  ;  and  no  one,  who  is  not  willing  to  call  in 
the  passions  of  the  multitude  in  suffrage  on  the  controversies 
of  the  few,  will  condescend  to  enforce  the  charge. 

But  only  observe  how,  in  the  present  instance,  the  matter 
stands.  In  the  popular  religion  we  discern,  mixed  up  to- 
gether, two  constituent  portions :  certain  peculiar  doctrines 
which  characterize  the  common  Orthodoxy ;  and  certain  uni- 
versal Christian  truths  remaining,  when  these  are  subtracted. 
The  infidel  throws  away  both  of  these  ;  we  throw  away  the 
former  only ;  and  thus  far,  no  doubt,  we  partially  agree  with 
him.  But  on  what  grounds  do  we  severally  justify  this  rejec- 
tion ?  In  answer  to  this  question,  compare  the  views,  with 
respect  both  to  the  authority  and  to  the  interpretation  of 
Scripture,  held  by  the  three  parties,  the  Trinitarian,  the 
Unbeliever,  the  Unitarian.  The  Unbeliever  does  not  usually 
find  fault  with  the  Orthodox  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  but 
allows  it  to  pass,  as  probably  the  real  meaning  of  the  book, 
only  he  altogether  denies  the  divine  character  and  authority 
of  the  whole  religion ;  he  therefore  agrees  with  the  Trinita- 
rian respecting  interpretation,  disagrees  with  him  respecting 
authority.  The  Unitarian,  again,  admits  the  divine  character 
of  Christianity,  but  understands  it  differently  from  the  Trini- 
tarian; he  therefore  reverses  the  former  case,  agrees  with 
the  Orthodox  on  the  authority,  disagrees  respecting  inter- 
pretation. It  follows,  that  with  the  Unbeliever  he  agrees  in 
neither,  and  is  therefore  farther  from  him  than  his  Trini- 
tarian accuser. 

I  have  given  this  explanation  from  regard  simply  to  logi- 
cal truth.  I  have  no  desire  to  join  in  the  outcry  against 
even  the  deliberate  unbeliever  in  the  Gospel,  as  if  he  must 


72  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

necessarily  be  a  fiend.  Profoundly  loving  and  trusting  Chris- 
tianity myself,  I  yet  feel  indignant  at  the  persecution  which 
theology,  policy,  and  law  inflict  on  the  many  who,  with  un- 
deniable exercise  of  conscientiousness  and  patience  of  re- 
search, are  yet  unable  to  satisfy  themselves  respecting  its 
evidence.  The  very  word  " infidel"  implying  not  simply  an 
intellectual  judgment,  but  bad  moral  qualities,  conveys  an  un- 
merited insult,  and  ought  to  be  repudiated  by  every  generous 
disputant.  The  more  deeply  we  trust  Christianity,  the  more 
should  we  protest  against  its  being  defended  by  a  body-guard 
of  passions,  willing  to  do  for  it  precisely  the  services  which 
they  might  equally  render  to  the  vulgarest  imposture. 

2.  We  were  recently  accused,  amid  acknowledgments  of 
our  honesty,  with  want  of  anxiety  about  spiritual  truth  ;  and 
the  following  justification  of  the  charge  was  offered :  "  The 
word  of  God  has  informed  us,  that  they  who  seek  the  truth 
shall  find  it ;  that  they  who  ask  for  holy  wisdom  shall  re- 
ceive it ;  but  it  must  be  a  really  anxious  inquiry,  —  a  heart- 
felt desire  for  the  blessing.  '  If  thou  seekest  her  as  silver, 
and  searchest  for  her  as  for  hid  treasures,  then  shalt  thou 
understand  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  and  find  the  knowledge  of 
God.'  Such  promises  are  express,  —  they  cannot  be  broken, 
—  God  will  give  the  blessing  to  the  sincere,  anxious  inquirer. 
But  the  two  qualities  must  go  together.  A  man  may  be  sin- 
cere in  his  ignorance  and  spiritual  torpor;  but  let  the  full 
desire  for  God's  favor,  his  pardoning  mercy,  and  his  en- 
lightening grace  spring  up  in  the  heart,  and  we  may  rest 
assured  that  the  desire  will  soon  be  accomplished.  Admit- 
ting, then,  the  sincerity  of  Unitarians,  we  doubt  their  anxiety, 
for  we  are  well  persuaded  from  God's  promises,  that,  if  they 
possessed  both,  they  would  be  delivered  from  their  miserable 
system,  and  be  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth."  * 

The  praise  of  our  "  sincerity,"  conveyed  in  these  bland 
sentences,  we  are  anxious  to  decline  :  not  that  we  undervalue 


*  Mr.  Dalton's  Lecture  on  the  Eternity  of  Future  Rewards  and  Punish- 
ments, p.  760. 


AND    WITHOUT    RITUAL.  73 

the  quality ;  but  because  we  find,  on  near  inspection,  that  it 
has  all  been  emptied  out  of  the  word  before  its  presentation, 
and  the  term  comes  to  us  hollow  and  worthless.  It  affords  a 
specimen  of  the  mode  in  which  alone  our  opponents  appear 
able  to  give  any  credit  to  heretics  :  many  phrases  of  appro- 
bation they  freely  apply  to  us  ;  but  they  take  care  to  draw 
off  the  whole  meaning  first.  We  must  reject  these  "  Greek 
presents " ;  and  we  are  concerned  that  any  Christian  divine 
can  so  torture  and  desecrate  the  names  of  virtue,  as  to  make 
them  instruments  of  disparagement  and  injury.  This  play 
with  words,  which  every  conscience  should  hold  sacred,  and 
every  lip  pronounce  with  reverence,  —  this  careless  and  un- 
meaning application  of  them  in  discourse,  —  indicates  a  loose 
adhesion  to  the  mind  of  the  ideas  denoted  by  them,  which 
we  regard  with  unfeigned  astonishment  and  grief.  What, 
let  me  ask,  can  be  the  "  sincerity  "  of  an  inquirer,  who  is  not 
"  anxious  "  about  the  truth  ?  How  can  he  be  "  sincerely  "  per- 
suaded that  he  sees,  who  voluntarily  shuts  his  eyes  ?  Unless 
this  word  is  to  be  degraded  into  a  synonyme  for  indolence  and 
self-complacency,  no  professed  seeker  of  truth  must  have  the 
praise  of  sincerity,  who  does  not  abandon  all  worship  of  his 
own  state  of  mind  as  already  perfect,  who  is  not  ready  to 
listen  to  every  calm  doubt  as  to  the  voice  of  heaven,  —  to  un- 
dertake with  gratitude  the  labor  of  reaching  new  knowl- 
edge,—  to  maintain  his  faith  and  his  profession  in  scrupulous 
accordance  with  his  perception  of  evidence ;  and,  at  any  mo- 
ment of  awakening,  to  spring  from  his  most  brilliant  dreams 
into  God's  own  morning  light,  with  a  matin  hymn  upon  his 
lips  for  his  new  birth  from  darkness  and  from  sleep.  The 
earnestness  implied  in  this  state  of  mind  is  perhaps  not  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  that  with  which  our  Trinitarian  opponents 
seem  to  be  familiar.  The  "  anxiety  "  which  they  appear  to 
feel  for  themselves  is,  to  keep  their  existing  state  of  belief: 
the  "  anxiety  "  which  they  feel  for  us  is,  that  we  should  have 
it.  We  are  to  hold  ourselves  ready  for  a  change ;  they  are 
not  to  be  expected  to  desire  it.  If  a  doubt  of  our  opinions 
should  occur  to  us,  we  are  to  foster  it  carefully,  and  follow  it 
7 


74  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

out  as  a  beckoning  of  the  Holy  Spirit :  if  a  doubt  of  their 
sentiments  should  occur  to  them,  they  are  to  crush  it  on  the 
spot,  as  a  reptile-thought  sent  of  Satan  to  tempt  them.  "  Our 
aim,"  says  the  concluding  Lecturer  again,  "  has  been  to  beget 
a  deep  spirit  of  inquiry  "  ;  *  and  so  has  ours,  I  would  reply : 
only  you  and  we  have  severally  prosecuted  this  aim  in  dif- 
ferent ways.  We  have  personally  listened,  and  personally 
inquired,  and  earnestly  recommended  all  whom  our  influence 
could  reach,  to  do  the  same :  and  few  indeed  will  be  the 
Unitarian  libraries  containing  one  of  these  series  of  Lectures 
that  will  not  exhibit  the  other  by  its  side.  You  have  entered 
this  controversy,  evidently  strange  to  our  literature  and  his- 
tory ;  and  any  deficiency  in  such  reading  before,  has  not 
been  compensated  by  anxiety  to  listen  now.  Your  people 
have  been  warned  against  us,  and  are  taught  to  regard  the 
study  of  our  publications  as  blasphemy  at  second  hand ;  and 
were  they  really  so  simple  as  to  act  upon  your  avowed  wish 
"  to  beget  a  deep  spirit  of  inquiry,"  and  plunge  into  the  in- 
vestigation of  Unitarian  authors,  and  judge  for  themselves  of 
Unitarian  worship,  they  would  speedily  hear  the  word  of 
recall,  and  discover  that  they  were  practically  disappointing 
the  whole  object  of  this  controversy. 

Having  said  thus  much  respecting  the  unmeaning  use  of 
language  in  the  Lecturer's  disparaging  estimate  of  Unitarian 
"  anxiety,"  we  may  profitably  direct  a  moment's  attention  to 
the  reasoning  which  it  involves.  It  presents  us  with  the 
standing  fallacy  of  intolerance,  which  is  sufficiently  rebuked 
by  being  simply  exhibited.  Our  opponents  reason  thus:  — 

God  will  not  permit  the  really  anxious  fatally  to 

err: 

The  Unitarians  do  fatally  err  : 
Therefore,  The  Unitarians  are  not  really  anxious. 

Now  it  is  clear  that  we  must  conceive  our  opponents  to  be 
no  less  mistaken  than  they  suppose  us  to  be.  They  are  as 

*  Mr.  Daltoa's  Lecture,  p.  760. 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  75 

far  from  us,  as  we  from  them ;  and  from  either  point,  taken 
as  a  standard,  the  measure  of  error  must  be  the  same.  More- 
over, we  cannot  but  eagerly  assent  to  the  principle  of  the 
Lecturer's  first  premise,  that  God  will  never  let  the  truly 
anxious  fatally  miss  their  way.  So  that  there  is  nothing,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  to  prevent  our  turning  this  same  syllo- 
gism, with  a  change  in  the  names  of  the  parties,  against  our 
opponents.  Yet  we  should  shrink,  with  severe  self-reproach, 
from  drawing  any  such  unfavorable  conclusion  respecting 
them,  as  they  deduce  of  us.  Accordingly,  we  manage  our 
reasoning  thus :  — 

God  will  not  permit  the  really  anxious  fatally  to 

err : 
The   Trinitarians   show   themselves   to   be  really 

anxious : 
Therefore,  The  Trinitarians  do  not  fatally  err. 

Our  opponents  are  more  sure  that  their  judgment  is  in  the 
right,  than  that  their  neighbors'  conscience  is  in  earnest. 
They  sacrifice  other  men's  characters  to  their  own  self-con- 
fidence :  we  would  rather  distrust  our  self-confidence,  and 
rely  on  the  visible  signs  of  a  good  and  careful  mind.  We 
honor  other  men's  hearts,  rather  than  our  own  heads.  How 
can  it  be  just,  to  make  the  agreement  between  an  opponent's 
opinion  and  our  own  the  criterion  of  his  proper  conduct  of 
the  inquiry  ?  Every  man  feels  the  injury  the  moment  the 
rule  is  turned  against  himself ;  and  every  good  man  should 
be  ashamed  to  direct  it  against  his  brother. 

3.  Our  reverend  opponents  affect  to  have  labored  under 
a  great  disadvantage,  from  the  absence  of  any  recognized 
standard  of  Unitarian  belief.  "  We  give  you,"  they  say,  "  our 
Articles  and  Creeds,  which  we  unanimously  undertake  to 
defend,  and  which  expose  a  definite  object  to  all  heretical 
attacks.  In  return,  you  can  furnish  us  with  no  authorized 
exposition  of  your  system,  but  leave  us  to  gather  our  knowl- 
edge of  it  from  individual  writers,  for  whose  opinions  you 
refuse  to  be  responsible,  and  whose  reasonings,  when  re- 
futed by  us,  you  can  conveniently  disown." 


76  CHRISTIANITY   WITHOUT   PRIEST 

Plausible  as  this  complaint  may  appear,  I  venture  to  affirm, 
that  it  is  vastly  easier  to  ascertain  the  common  belief  of  Uni- 
tarians, than  that  of  the  members  of  the  Established  Church  ; 
and  for  this  plain  reason,  that  with  us  there  really  is  such  a 
thing  as  a  common  faith,  though  defined  in  no  confession  ;  in 
the  Anglican  Church  there  is  not,  though  articles  and  creeds 
profess  it.  The  characteristic  tenets  of  Unitarian  Christianity 
are  so  simple  and  unambiguous,  that  little  scope  exists  for 
variety  in  their  interpretation  :  to  the  propositions  expressing 
them  all  their  professors  attach  distinct  and  the  same  ideas  ;  — 
so  far,  at  least,  as  such  accordance  is  possible  in  relation  to 
subjects  inaccessible  both  to  demonstration  and  to  experience. 
But  the  Trinitarian  hypothesis,  venturing  with  presumptuous 
analysis  far  into  the  Divine  psychology,  presents  us  with 
ideas  confessedly  inapprehensible ;  propounded  in  language 
which,  if  used  in  its  ordinary  sense,  is  self-contradictory,  and 
if  not,  is  unmeaning,  and  ready  in  its  emptiness  to  be  filled 
by  any  arbitrary  interpretation  ;  —  and  actually  understood  so 
variously  by  those  who  subscribe  to  them,  that  the  Calvinist 
and  the  Arminian,  the  Tritheist  and  the  Sabellian,  unite  to 
praise  them.  Indeed,  in  the  history  of  the  English  Church, 
so  visible  is  the  sweep  of  the  centre  of  Orthodoxy  over  the 
whole  space  from  the  confines  of  Romanism  to  the  verge  of 
Unitarianism,  that  our  ecclesiastical  chronology  is  measured 
by  its  oscillations.  Our  respected  opponents  know  full  well, 
that  it  is  not  necessary  to  search  beyond  the  clergy  of  this 
town,  or  even  beyond  the  morning  and  afternoon  preaching 
in  one  and  the  same  church,  in  order  to  encounter  greater 
contrasts  in  theology,  than  could  be  found  in  a  whole  library 
of  Unitarian  divinity.  What  mockery,  then,  to  refer  us  to 
these  articles  as  expositions  of  clerical  belief,  when  the  mo- 
ment we  pass  beyond  the  words,  and  address  ourselves  to  the 
sense,  every  shade  of  contrariety  appears  ;  and  no  one  definite 
conception  can  be  adopted  of  such  a  doctrine  as  that  of  the 
Trinity,  without  some  church  expositor  or  other  starting  up 
to  rebuke  it  as  a  misrepresentation  !  How  poor  the  pride  of 
uniformity,  which  contents  itself  with  lip-service  to  the  sym- 
bol, in  the  midst  of  heart-burnings  about  the  reality !  "  - 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  77 

In  order  to  test  the  force  of  the  objection  to  which  I  am 
referring,  let  us  advert,  in  detail,  to  the  topics  which  exhibit 
the  Unitarian  and  Trinitarian  theology  in  most  direct  oppo- 
sition. It  will  appear  that  the  advantage  of  unity  lies,  in  this 
instance,  on  the  side  of  heresy ;  and  that,  if  multiformity  be 
a  prime  characteristic  of  error,  there  is  a  wide  difference 
between  orthodoxy  and  truth.  There  are  four  great  subjects 
comprised  in  the  controversy  between  the  Church  and  our- 
selves :  the  nature  of  God ;  of  Christ ;  of  sin  ;  of  punishment. 
On  these  several  points  (which,  considered  as  involving  on 
our  part  denials  of  previous  ideas,  may  be  regarded  as  con- 
taining the  negative  elements  of  our  belief)  all  our  modern 
writers,  without  material  variation  or  exception,  maintain  the 
following  doctrines :  — 

UNITARIAN  DOCTRINES,  opposed  to  CHURCH  DOCTRINES. 

1.  The  Personal  Unity  of  God.     1.  The  Trinity  in  Unity. 

2.  The  Simplicity  of  Nature  in     2.  Two  Distinct  Natures  in 

Christ.  Christ. 

3.  The    Personal    Origin    and     3.  The  Transferable  Nature 

Identity  of  Sin.  and  Vicarious  Remov- 

al of  Sin. 

4.  The  Finite  Duration  of  Fu-     4.  The   Eternity    of    Hell 

ture  Suffering.  Torments. 

Now  no  one  at  all  familiar  with  polemical  literature  can 
deny  that  the  modes  and  ambiguities  of  doctrine  comprised 
in  this  Trinitarian  list  are  more  numerous  than  can  be  de- 
tected in  the  parallel  "heresies."  I  am  willing,  indeed,  to 
admit  an  exception  in  respect  to  the  last  of  the  topics,  and  to 
allow  that  the  belief  in  the  finite  duration  of  future  punishment 
has  opposed  itself,  in  two  forms,  to  the  single  doctrine  of 
everlasting  torments.  But  when  the  systems  are  compared 
at  their  other  corresponding  points,  the  boast  of  orthodox 
uniformity  instantly  vanishes.  Since  the  primitive  jealousy 
between  the  Jewish  and  Gentile  Christianity,  the  rivalry  be- 
tween the  "  Monarchy "  and  the  "  Economy,"  the  believers 
7* 


78  CHRISTIANITY    WITHOUT    PRIEST 

in  the  personal  unity  of  God,  though  often  severed  by  ages 
from  each  other,  have  held  that  majestic  truth  in  one  un- 
varied form.  Never  was  there  an  idea  so  often  lost  and  re- 
covered, yet  so  absolutely  unchanged :  a  sublime  but  occa- 
sional visitant  of  the  human  mind,  assuring  us  of  the  perpetual 
oneness  of  our  own  nature,  as  well  as  the  Divine.  We  can 
point  to  no  unbroken  continuity  of  our  great  doctrine :  and 
if  we  could,  we  should  appeal  with  no  confidence  to  the 
evidence  of  so  dubious  a  phenomenon ;  for  if  a  system  of 
ideas  once  gains  possession  of  society,  and  attracts  to  itself 
complicated  interests  and  feelings,  many  causes  may  suffice 
to  insure  its  indefinite  preservation.  But  we  can  point  to  a 
greater  phenomenon  :  to  the  long  and  repeated  extinction  of 
our  favorite  belief,  to  its  submersion  beneath  a  dark  and 
restless  fanaticism ;  and  its  invariable  resurrection,  like  a 
necessary  intuition  of  the  soul,  in  times  of  purer  light,  with 
its  features  still  the  same ;  stamped  with  imperishable  identity 
of  truth,  and,  like  him  to  whom  it  refers,  without  variableness 
or  shadow  of  a  turning.  Meanwhile,  who  will  undertake  to 
enumerate  and  define  the  succession  of  Trinities  by  which 
this  doctrine  has  been  bewildered  and  banished?  Passing 
by  the  Aristotelian,  the  Platonic,  the  Ciceronian,  the  Carte- 
sian Trinity,  —  quitting  the  stormy  disputes  and  contradictory 
decisions  of  the  early  councils,  shall  we  find  among  even  the 
modern  fathers  of  our  National  Church  any  approach  to 
unanimity  ?  Am  I  to  be  content  with  the  doctrine  of  Bishop 
Bull,  and  subordinate  the  Son  to  the  Father  as  the  sole  foun- 
tain of  divinity  ?  Or  must  I  rise  to  the  Tritheism  of  Water- 
land  and  Sherlock  ?  or,  accepting  the  famous  decision  of  the 
University  of  Oxford,  descend,  with  Archbishop  Whately, 
to  the  modal  Trinity  of  South  and  Wallis  ?  Are  we  to 
understand  the  phrase,  three  persons,  to  mean  three  beings 
united  by  "  perichoresis,"  three  "  mutual  inexistences,"  three 
"modes,"  three  "differences,"  three  "contemplations,"  or 
three  "somewhats";  or,  being  told  that  this  is  but  a  vain 
prying  into  a  mystery,  shall  we  be  satisfied  to  leave  the 
phrase  without  idea  at  all  ?  It  is  to  the  last  decree  astonish- 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  79 

ing  to  hear  from  Trinitarian  divines  the  praises  of  uniformity 
of  belief;  seeing  that  it  is  one  of  the  chief  labors  of  eccle- 
siastical history  to  record  the  incessant  effort,  vain  to  the 
present  day,  to  give  some  stability  of  meaning  to  the  funda- 
mental doctrines  of  their  faith. 

The  same  remark  applies,  with  little  modification,  to  the 
opposite  views  respecting  the  person  of  the  Saviour.  It  is 
true,  that  Unitarians,  agreed  respecting  the  singleness  of 
nature  in  Christ,  differ  respecting  the  natural  rank  of  that 
nature,  whether  his  soul  were  human  or  angelic.  But,  for 
this  solitary  variety  among  these  heretics,  how  many  doc- 
trines of  the  Logos  and  the  Incarnation  does  Orthodox 
literature  contain  ?  Can  any  one  affirm,  that,  when  the  Coun- 
cil of  Ephesus  had  arbitrated  between  the  Eutychian  doc- 
trine of  absorption,  and  the  Nestorian  doctrine  of  separation, 
all  doubt  and  ambiguity  was  removed  by  the  magic  phrase 
"  hypostatic  union "  ?  Since  the  monophysite  contest  was 
at  its  height,  has  the  Virgin  Maiy  been  left  in  undisputed 
possession  of  her  title  as  "  Mother  of  God  "  ?  Has  the  Eter- 
nal Generation  of  the  Son  encountered  no  orthodox  sus- 
picions, and  the  Indwelling  scheme  received  no  orthodox 
support  ?  And  if  we  ask  these  questions  :  "  What  respec- 
tively happened  to  the  two  natures  on  the  cross  ?  what  has 
become  of  Christ's  human  soul  now  ?  is  it  separate  from  the 
Godhead,  like  any  other  immortal  spirit,  or  is  it  added  to  the 
Deity,  so  as  to  introduce  into  his  nature  a  new  and  fourth 
element?"  shall  we  receive  from  the  many  voices  of  the 
Church  but  one  accordant  answer  ?  Nay,  do  the  authors  of 
this  controversy  suppose  that,  during  its  short  continuance, 
they  have  been  able  to  maintain  their  unanimity  ?  If  they 
do,  I  believe  that  any  reader  who  thinks  it  worth  while  to 
register  the  varieties  of  eri*or,  would  be  able  to  undeceive 
them.  If  the  diversities  of  doctrine  cannot  easily  and  often 
be  shown  to  amount  to  palpable  inconsistencies,  this  must  be 
ascribed,  I  believe,  to  the  mystic  and  technical  phraseology, 
the  substitute  rather  than  the  expression  for  precise  ideas,  — 
which  has  become  the  vernacular  dialect  of  orthodox  divinity. 


80  CHRISTIANITY   WITHOUT   PRIEST 

The  jargon  of  theology  affords  a  field  too  barren  to  bear  so 
vigorous  a  weed  as  an  undisputed  contradiction. 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  on  the  numerous  forms  under  which 
the  doctrine  of  Atonement  has  been  held  by  those  who  sub- 
scribe the  articles  of  our  National  Church ;  while  its  Unitarian 
opponents  have  taken  their  fixed  station  on  the  personal 
character  and  untransferable  nature  of  sin.  One  writer  tells 
us  that  only  the  human  nature  perished  on  the  cross  ;  another, 
that  God  himself  expired :  some  say,  that  Christ  suffered  no 
more  intensely,  but  only  more  "  meritoriously,"  than  many  a 
martyr;  others,  that  he  endured  the  whole  quantity  of  tor- 
ment due  to  the  wicked  whom  he  redeemed  :  some,  that  it  is 
the  spotlessness  of  his  manhood  that  is  imputed  to  believers ; 
others,  that  it  is  the  holiness  of  his  Deity.  From  the  high 
doctrine  of  satisfaction  to  the  very  verge  of  Unitarian  heresy, 
every  variety  of  interpretation  has  been  given  to  the  language 
of  the  established  formularies  respecting  Christian  redemp- 
tion. Nor  is  it  yet  determined  whether,  in  the  lottery  of 
opinion,  the  name  of  Owen,  Sykes,  or  Magee  shall  be  drawn 
for  the  prize  of  orthodoxy. 

And  if,  from  those  parts  of  our  belief  to  which  the  acci- 
dents of  their  historical  origin  have  given  a  negative  char- 
acter, we  turn  to  those  which  are  positive,  not  the  slightest 
reason  will  appear  for  charging  them  with  uncertainty  and 
fluctuation.  All  Unitarian  writers  maintain  the  Moral  Per- 
fection and  Fatherly  Providence  of  the  Infinite  Ruler ;  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  whose  person  and  spirit  there 
is  a  Revelation  of  God  and  a  Sanctification  for  Man;  the 
Responsibility  and  Retributive  Immortality  of  men ;  and  the 
need  of  a  pure  and  devout  heart  of  Faith,  as  the  source  of  all 
outward  goodness  and  inward  communion  with  God.  These 
great  and  self-luminous  points,  bound  together  by  natural 
affinity,  constitute  the  fixed  centre  of  our  religion.  And  on 
subjects  beyond  this  centre  we  have  no  wider  divergences 
than  are  found  among  those  who  attach  themselves  to  an 
opposite  system.  For  example,  the  relations  between  Scrip- 
ture and  Reason,  as  evidences  and  guides  in  questions  of  doc- 


AND    WITHOUT   RITUAL.  81 

trine,  are  not  more  unsettled  among  us,  than  are  the  relations 
between  Scripture  and  Tradition  in  the  Church.  Nor  is  the 
perpetual  authority  of  the  "  Christian  rites "  so  much  in 
debate  among  our  ministers,  as  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments 
among  the  clergy.  In  truth,  our  diversities  of  sentiment 
affect  far  less  what  we  believe,  than  the  question  why  we 
believe  it.  Different  modes  of  reasoning,  and  different  results 
of  interpretation,  are  no  doubt  to  be  found  among  our  several 
authors.  We  all  make  our  appeal  to  the  records  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  but  we  have  voted  no  particular  commentator  into 
the  seat  of  authority.  And  is  not  this  equally  true  of  our 
opponents'  Church  ?  Their  articles  and  creeds  furnish  no 
textual  expositions  of  Scripture,  but  only  results  and  deduc- 
tions from  its  study.  And  so  variously  have  these  results 
been  elicited  from  the  sacred  writings,  that  scarcely  a  text  can 
be  adduced  in  defence  of  the  Trinitarian  scheme,  which  some 
witness  unexceptionably  orthodox  may  not  be  summoned  to 
prove  inapplicable.  In  fine,  we  have  no  greater  variety  of 
critical  and  exegetical  opinion  than  the  divines  from  whom  we 
dissent ;  while  the  system  of  Christianity  in  which  our  Scrip- 
tural labors  have  issued,  has  its  leading  characteristics  better 
determined  and  more  apprehensible  than  the  scheme  which 
the  articles  and  creeds  have  vainly  labored  to  define. 

The  refusal  to  embody  our  sentiments  in  any  authoritative 
formula  appears  to  strike  observers  as  a  whimsical  exception 
to  the  general  practice  of  churches.  The  peculiarity  has  had 
its  origin  in  hereditary  and  historical  associations ;  but  it  has 
its  defence  in  the  noblest  principles  of  religious  freedom  and 
Christian  communion.  At  present,  it  must  suffice  to  say, 
that  our  societies  are  dedicated,  not  to  theological  opinions, 
but  to  religious  worship ;  that  they  have  maintained  the 
unity  of  the  spirit,  without  insisting  on  any  unity  of  doc- 
trine ;  that  Christian  liberty,  love,  and  piety  are  their  essen- 
tials in  perpetuity,  but  their  Unitarianism  an  accident  of  a 
few  or  many  generations,  —  which  has  arisen,  and  might 
vanish,  without  the  loss  of  their  identity.  We  believe  in  the 
mutability  of  religious  systems,  but  the  imperishable  char- 


82  CHRISTIANITY  WITHOUT    PUIEST,    ETC. 

acter  of  the  religious  affections  ;  —  in  the  progressiveness  of 
opinion  within,  as  well  as  without,  the  limits  of  Christianity. 
Our  forefathers  cherished  the  same  conviction;  and  so,  not 
having  been  born  intellectual  bondsmen,  we  desire  to  leave 
our  successors  free.  Convinced  that  uniformity  of  doctrine 
can  never  prevail,  we  seek  to  attain  its  only  good  —  peace  on 
earth  and  communion  with  Heaven  — without  it.  We  aim  to 
make  a  true  Christendom,  —  a  commonwealth  of  the  faithful, 
—  by  the  binding  force,  not  of  ecclesiastical  creeds,  but  of 
spiritual  wants  and  Christian  sympathies ;  and  indulge  the 
vision  of  a  Church  that  "  in  the  latter  days  shall  arise,"  like 
"  the  mountain  of  the  Lord,"  bearing  on  its  ascent  the  blos- 
soms of  thought  proper  to  every  intellectual  clime,  and  withal 
massively  rooted  in  the  deep  places  of  our  humanity,  and 
gladly  rising  to  meet  the  sunshine  from  on  high. 

And  now,  friends  and  brethren,  let  us  say  a  glad  farewell 
to  the  fretfulness  of  controversy,  and  retreat  again,  with 
thanksgiving,  into  the  interior  of  our  own  venerated  truth. 
Having  come  forth,  at  the  severer  call  of  duty,  to  do  battle 
for  it,  with  such  force  as  God  vouchsafes  to  the  sincere,  let 
us  go  in  to  live  and  worship  beneath  its  shelter.  They  tell 
you  it  is  not  the  true  faith.  Perhaps  not;  but  then  you 
think  it  so ;  and  that  is  enough  to  make  your  duty  clear,  and 
to  draw  from  it,  as  from  nothing  else,  the  very  peace  of  God. 
May  be,  we  are  on  our  way  to  something  better,  unexistent 
and  unseen  as  yet,  which  may  penetrate  our  souls  with  nobler 
affection,  and  give  a  fresh  spontaneity  of  love  to  God  and  all 
immortal  things.  Perhaps  there  cannot  be  the  truest  life  of 
faith,  except  in  scattered  individuals,  till  this  age  of  conflicting 
doubt  and  dogmatism  shall  have  passed  away.  Dark  and 
leaden  clouds  of  materialism  hide  the  heaven  from  us ;  red 
gleams  of  fanaticism  pierce  through,  vainly  striving  to  reveal 
it ;  and  not  till  the  weight  is  heaved  from  off  the  air,  and  the 
thunders  roll  down  the  horizon,  will  the  serene  light  of  God 
flow  upon  us,  and  the  blue  infinite  embrace  us  again.  Mean- 
while we  must  reverently  love  the  faith  we  have  ;  to  quit  it  for 
one  that  we  have  not,  were  to  lose  the  breath  of  life  and  die. 


INCONSISTENCY  OF  THE   SCHEME  OF  VICA- 
RIOUS REDEMPTION. 


u  Neither  is  there  salvation  in  any  other  ;  for  there  is  none  other  name  under 
heaven  given  among  men,  whereby  we  must  be  saved."  —  Acts  iv.  12. 

THE  scene  which  we  have  this  evening  to  visit  and  explore, 
is  separated  from  us  by  the  space  of  eighteen  centuries ;  yet 
of  nothing  on  this  earth  has  Providence  left,  within  the 
shadows  of  the  past,  so  vivid  and  divine  an  image.  Gently 
rising  above  the  mighty  "field  of  the  world,"  Calvary's 
mournful  hill  appears,  covered  with  silence  now,  but  dis- 
tinctly showing  the  heavenly  light  that  struggled  there 
through  the  stormiest  elements  of  guilt.  Nor  need  we  only 
gaze,  as  on  a  motionless  picture  that  closes  the  vista  of  Chris- 
tian ages.  Permitting  history  to  take  us  by  the  hand,  we 
may  pace  back  in  pilgrimage  to  the  hour,  till  its  groups  stand 
around  us,  and  pass  by  us,  and  its  voices  of  passion  and  of 
grief  mock  and  wail  upon  our  ear.  As  we  mingle  with  the 
crowd  which,  amid  noise  and  dust,  follows  the  condemned 
prisoners  to  the  place  of  execution,  and  fix  our  eye  on  the 
faint  and  panting  figure  of  one  that  bears  his  cross,  could 
we  but  whisper  to  the  sleek  priests  close  by,  how  might  we 
startle  them,  by  telling  them  the  future  fate  of  this  brief 
tragedy,  —  brief  in  act,  in  blessing  everlasting;  that  this 
Galilean  convict  shall  be  the  world's  confessed  deliverer, 
while  they  that  have  brought  him  to  this  shall  be  the  scorn 
and  by-word  of  the  nations ;  that  that  vile  instrument  of  tor- 
ture, now  so  abject  that  it  makes  the  dying  slave  more  servile, 


84  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

shall  be  made,  by  this  victim  and  this  hour,  the  symbol  of 
whatever  is  holy  and  sublime  ;  the  emblem  of  hope  and  love  ; 
pressed  to  the  lips  of  ages ;  consecrated  by  a  veneration  which 
makes  the  sceptre  seem  trivial  as  an  infant's  toy.    Meanwhile, 
the  sacerdotal  hypocrites,  unconscious  of  the  part  they  play, 
watch   to  the  end   the  public  murder  which  they  have  pri- 
vately suborned ;  stealing  a  phrase  from  Scripture,  that  they 
may  mock  with  holy  lips ;  and  leaving  to  the  plebeian  soldiers 
the  mutual  jest  and  brutal  laugh,  that  serve  to  beguile  the 
hired  but  hated  work  of  agony,  and  that  draw  forth  from  the 
sufferer  that  burst  of  forgiving  prayer,  which  sunk  at  least 
into  their  centurion's  heart.     One  there  is,  who  should  have 
been   spared   the  hearing  of  these  scoffs  ;  and  perhaps  she 
heard  them  not ;  for  before  his  nature  was  exhausted  more, 
his  eye  detects  and  his  voice  addresses  her,  and  twines  round 
her  the  filial  arm  of  that  disciple,  who  had  been  ever  the  most 
loving  as  well  as  most  beloved.     She  at  least  lost  the  religion 
of  that  hour  in  its  humanity,  and  beheld  not  the  prophet,  but 
the  son :  —  had  not  her  own   hands   wrought  that  seamless 
robe  for  which  the  soldiers'  lot  is  cast ;  and  her  own  lips 
taught  him  that  strain  of  sacred  poetry,  "  My  God,  my  God, 
why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  "  but  never  had  she  thought  to 
hear  it  thus.     As  the  cries  become  fainter  and  fainter,  scarcely 
do  they  reach  Peter  standing  afar  off.     The  last  notice  of  him 
had  been  the  rebuking  look  that  sent  him  to  weep  bitterly ; 
and  now  the  voice  that  alone  can  tell  him  his  forgiveness  will 
soon  be  gone !     Broken  hardly  less,  though  without  remorse, 
is  the  youthful  John,  to  see  that  head,  lately  resting  on  his 
bosom,  drooping  passively  in  death ;  and  to  hear  the  involun- 
tary shriek  of  Mary,  as  the  spear  struck  upon  the  lifeless 
body,  moving  now  only  as  it  is  moved  ;  —  whence  he  alone,  on 
whom  she  leaned,  records  the  fact     Well  might  the  Galilean 
friends  stand  at  a  distance  gazing ;  unable  to  depart,  yet  not 
daring  to  approach ;  well  might  the  multitudes  that  had  cried 
"  Crucify  him ! "  in  the  morning,  shudder  at  the  thought  of  that 
clamor  ere  night ;  "  beholding  the  things  that  had  come  to 
pass,  they  smote  their  breasts  and  returned." 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  85 

This  is  the  scene  of  which  we  have  to  seek  the  interpreta- 
tion. Our  first  natural  impression  is,  that  it  requires  no  in- 
terpretation, but  speaks  for  itself;  that  it  has  no  mystery, 
except  that  which  belongs  to  the  triumphs  of  deep  guilt,  and 
the  sanctities  of  disinterested  love.  To  raise  our  eye  to  that 
serene  countenance,  to  listen  to  that  submissive  voice,  to 
note  the  subjects  of  its  utterance,  would  give  us  no  idea  of 
any  mystic  horror  concealed  behind  the  human  features  of 
the  scene ;  of  any  invisible  contortions,  as  from  the  lash  of 
demons,  in  the  soul  of  that  holy  victim ;  of  any  sympathetic 
connection  of  that  cross  with  the  bottomless  pit  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  highest  heaven  on  the  other;  of  any  moral 
revolution  throughout  our  portion  of  the  universe,  of  which 
this  public  execution  is  but  the  outward  signal.  The  his- 
torians  drop  no  hint  that  its  sufferings,  its  affections,  its  re- 
lations, were  other  than  human,  —  raised  indeed  to  distinction 
by  miraculous  accompaniments ;  but  intrinsically,  however 
signally,  human.  They  mention,  as  if  bearing  some  appre- 
ciable proportion  to  the  whole  series  of  incidents,  particulars 
so  slight,  as  to  vanish  before  any  other  than  the  obvious  his- 
torical view  of  the  transaction ;  the  thirst,  the  sponge,  the 
rent  clothes,  the  mingled  drink.  They  ascribe  no  sentiment 
to  the  crucified,  except  such  as  might  be  expressed  by  one 
of  like  nature  with  ourselves,  in  the  consciousness  of  a  fin- 
ished work  of  duty,  and  a  fidelity  never  broken  under  the 
strain  of  heaviest  trial.  The  narrative  is  clearly  the  produc- 
tion of  minds  filled,  not  with  theological  anticipations,  but 
with  historical  recollections. 

With  this  view  of  Christ's  death,  which  is  such  as  might 
be  entertained  by  any  of  the  primitive  churches,  having  one 
of  the  Gospels  only,  without  any  of  the  Epistles,  we  are 
content.  I  conceive  of  it,  then,  as  manifesting  the  last  degree 
of  moral  perfection  in  the  Holy  One  of  God ;  and  believe 
that,  in  thus  being  an  expression  of  character,  it  has  its  pri- 
mary and  everlasting  value.  I  conceive  of  it  as  the  needful 
preliminary  to  his  resurrection  and  ascension,  by  which  the 
severest  difficulties  in  the  theory  of  Providence,  life,  and 


86  INCONSISTENCY   OF   THE 

duty  are  alleviated  or  solved.  I  conceive  of  it  as  imme- 
diately procuring  the  universality  and  spirituality  of  the 
Gospel ;  by  dissolving  those  corporeal  ties  which  gave  nation- 
ality to  Jesus,  and  making  him,  in  his  heavenly  and  immortal 
form,  the  Messiah  of  humanity ;  blessing,  sanctifying,  regen- 
erating not  a  people  from  the  centre  of  Jerusalem,  but  a 
world  from  his  station  in  the  heavens.  And  these  views, 
under  unimportant  modifications,  I  submit,  are  the  only  ones 
of  which  Scripture  contains  a  trace. 

All  this,  however,  we  are  assured,  is  the  mere  outside 
aspect  of  the  crucifixion ;  and  wholly  insignificant  compared 
with  the  invisible  character  and  relations  of  the  scene ; 
which,  localized  only  on  earth,  has  its  chief  effect  in  hell ; 
and,  though  presenting  itself  among  the  occurrences  of  time, 
is  a  repeal  of  the  decretals  of  Eternity.  The  being  who 
hangs  upon  that  cross  is  not  man  alone ;  but  also  the  ever- 
lasting God,  who  created  and  upholds  all  things,  even  the  sun 
that  now  darkens  its  face  upon  him,  and  the  murderers  who 
are  waiting  for  his  expiring  cry.  The  anguish  he  endures  is 
not  chiefly  that  which  falls  so  poignantly  on  the  eye  and  ear 
of  the  spectator ;  the  injured  human  affections,  the  dreadful 
momentary  doubt ;  the  pulses  of  physical  torture,  doubling 
on  him  with  full  or  broken  wave,  till  driven  back  by  the 
overwhelming  power  of  love  disinterested  and  divine.  But 
he  is  judicially  abandoned  by  the  Infinite  Father ;  who  ex- 
pends on  him  the  immeasurable  wrath  due  to  an  apostate 
race,  gathers  up  into  an  hour  the  lightnings  of  Eternity,  and 
lets  them  loose  upon  that  bended  head.  It  is  the  moment  of 
retributive  justice ;  the  expiation  of  all  human  guilt :  that 
open  brow  hides  beneath  it  the  despair  of  millions  of  men ; 
and  to  the  intensity  of  agony  there,  no  human  wail  could  give 
expression.  Meanwhile,  the  future  brightens  on  the  elect ;  the 
tempests  that  hung  over  their  horizon  are  spent.  The  ven- 
geance of  the  lawgiver  having  had  its  way,  the  sunshine  of  a 
Father's  grace  breaks  forth,  and  lights  up,  with  hope  and 
beauty,  the  earth,  which  had  been  a  desert  of  despair  and 
sin.  According  to  this  theory,  Christ,  in  his  death,  was  a 


SCHEME    OP   VICARIOUS   REDEMPTION.  87 

proper  expiatory  sacrifice ;  he  turned  aside,  by  enduring  it 
for  them,  the  infinite  punishment  of  sin  from  all  past  or 
future  believers  in  this  efficacy  of  the  cross;  and  trans- 
ferred to  them  the  natural  rewards  of  his  own  righteous- 
ness. An  acceptance  of  this  doctrine  is  declared  to  be  the 
prime  condition  of  the  Divine  forgiveness ;  for  no  one  who 
does  not  see  the  pardon  can  have  it.  And  this  pardon,  again, 
this  clear  score  for  the  past,  is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  all 
sanctification ;  to  all  practical  opening  of  a  disinterested  heart 
towards  our  Creator  and  man.  Pardon,  and  the  perception 
of  it,  are  the  needful  preludes  to  that  conforming  love  to  God 
and  men,  which  is  the  true  Christian  salvation. 

The  evidence  in  support  of  this  theory  is  derived  partly 
from  natural  appearances,  partly  from  Scriptural  announce- 
ments. Involving,  as  it  does,  statements  respecting  the  ac- 
tual condition  of  human  nature,  and  the  world  in  which  we 
live,  some  appeal  to  experience,  and  to  the  rational  interpre- 
tation of  life  and  Providence,  is  inevitable ;  and  hence  cer- 
tain propositions,  affecting  to  be  of  a  philosophical  character, 
are  laid  down  as  fundamental  by  the  advocates  of  this  system. 
Yet  it  is  admitted,  that  direct  revelation  only  could  have  ac- 
quainted us,  either  with  our  lost  condition,  or  our  vicarious 
recovery ;  and  that  all  we  can  expect  to  accomplish  with 
nature,  is  to  harmonize  what  we  observe  there  with  what  we 
read  in  the  written  records  of  God's  will ;  so  that  the  main 
stress  of  the  argument  rests  on  the  interpretation  of  Scrip- 
ture. The  principles  deduced  from  the  nature  of  things,  and 
laid  down  as  a  basis  for  this  doctrine,  may  be  thus  repre- 
sented :  — 

That  man  needs  a  Redeemer ;  having  obviously  fallen,  by 
some  disaster,  into  a  state  of  misery  and  guilt,  from  which 
the  worst  penal  consequences  must  be  apprehended  ;  and  were 
it  not  for  the  probability  of  such  lapse  from  the  condition  in 
which  it  was  fashioned,  it  would  be  impossible  to  reconcile 
the  phenomena  of  the  world  with  the  justice  and  benevolence 
of  its  Creator. 

That  Deity  only  can  redeem ;  since,  to  preserve  veracity, 


88  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

the  penalty  of  sin  must  be  inflicted ;  and  the  diversion  only, 
not  the  annihilation  of  it,  is  possible.  To  let  it  fall  on  angels 
would  fail  of  the  desired  end;  because  human  sin,  having 
been  directed  against  an  Infinite  Being,  has  incurred  an  in- 
finitude of  punishment;  which  on  no  created  beings  could 
be  exhausted  in  any  period  short  of  eternity.  Only  a  nature 
strictly  infinite  can  compress  within  itself,  in  the  compass  of 
an  hour,  the  woes  distributed  over  the  immortality  of  man- 
kind. Hence,  were  God  personally  One,  like  man,  no  re- 
demption could  be  effected ;  for  there  would  be  no  Deity  to 
suffer,  except  the  very  One  who  must  punish.  But  the  tri- 
plicity  of  the  Godhead  relieves  all  difficulty ;  for,  while  one 
Infinite  inflicts,  another  Infinite  endures ;  and  resources  are 
furnished  for  the  atonement. 

Amid  a  great  variety  of  forms  in  which  the  theory  of  atone- 
ment exists,  I  have  selected  the  foregoing ;  which,  if  I  un- 
derstand aright,  is  that  which  is  vindicated  in  the  present 
controversy.  I  am  not  aware  that  I  have  added  anything  to 
the  language  in  which  it  is  stated  by  its  powerful  advocate, 
unless  it  be  a  few  phrases,  leaving  its  essential  meaning  the 
same,  but  needful  to  render  it  compact  and  clear. 

The  Scriptural  evidence  is  found  principally  in  certain  of 
the  Apostolical  Epistles  ;  and  this  circumstance  will  render  it 
necessary  to  conduct  a  separate  search  into  the  historical 
writings  of  the  New  Testament,  that  we  may  ascertain  how 
they  express  the  corresponding  set  of  ideas.  Taking  up  suc- 
cessively these  two  branches  of  the  subject,  the  natural  and 
the  Biblical,  I  propose  to  show,  first,  that  this  doctrine  is  in- 
consistent with  itself;  secondly,  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  the 
Christian  idea  of  salvation. 

I.  It  is  inconsistent  with  itself. 

(1.)  In  its  manner  of  treating  the  principles  of  natural 
religion. 

Our  faith  in  the  infinite  benevolence  of  God  is  represented 
as  destitute  of  adequate  support  from  the  testimony  of  na- 
ture. It  requires,  we  are  assured,  the  suppression  of  a  mass 
of  appearances,  that  would  scare  it  away  in  an  instant,  were 


SCHEME    OP    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  89 

it  to  venture  into  their  presence ;  and  is  a  dream  of  sickly 
and  effeminate  minds,  whose  belief  is  the  inward  growth 
of  amiable  sentimentality,  rather  than  a  genuine  production 
from  God's  own  facts.  The  appeal  to  the  order  and  mag- 
nificence of  creation,  to  the  structures  and  relations  of  the 
inorganic,  the  vegetable,  the  animal,  the  spiritual  forms,  that 
fill  the  ascending  ranks  of  tliis  visible  and  conscious  universe ; 
—  to  the  arrangements  which  make  it  a  blessing  to  be  born, 
far  more  than  a  suffering  to  die,  —  which  enable  us  to  extract 
the  relish  of  life  from  its  toils,  the  affections  of  our  nature 
from  its  sufferings,  the  triumphs  of  goodness  from  its  temp- 
tations ;  —  to  the  seeming  plan  of  general  progress,  which 
elicits  truth  by  the  self-destruction  of  error,  and  by  the  ex- 
tinction of  generations  gives  perpetual  rejuvenescence  to  the 
world  ;  —  this  appeal,  which  is  another  name  for  the  scheme  of 
natural  religion,  is  dismissed  with  scorn  ;  and  sin  and  sorrow 
and  death  are  flung  in  defiance  across  our  path,  —  barriers 
which  we  must  remove,  ere  we  can  reach  the  presence  of  a 
benignant  God.  Come  with  us,  it  is  said,  and  listen  to  the 
wail  of  the  sick  infant ;  look  into  the  dingy  haunts  where 
poverty  moans  its  life  away ;  bend  down  your  ear  to  the  ac- 
cursed hum  that  strays  from  the  busy  hives  of  guilt ;  spy 
into  the  hold  of  the  slave-ship ;  from  the  factory  follow  the 
wasted  child  to  the  gin-shop  first,  and  then  to  the  cellar 
called  its  home ;  or  look  even  at  your  own  tempted  and  sin- 
bound  souls,  and  your  own  perishing  race,  snatched  off  into 
the  dark  by  handfuls  through  the  activity  of  a  destroying 
God ;  and  tell  us,  did  our  benevolent  Creator  make  a  crea- 
ture and  a  world  like  this  ?  A  Calvinist  who  puts  this  ques- 
tion is  playing  with  fire.  But  I  answer  the  question  ex- 
plicitly :  All  these  things  we  have  met  steadily,  and  face  to 
face  ;  in  full  view  of  them,  we  have  taken  up  our  faith  in  the 
goodness  of  God ;  and  in  full  view  of  them  we  will  hold  fast 
that  faith.  Nor  is  it  just  or  true  to  affirm,  that  our  system 
hides  these  evils,  or  that  our  practice  refuses  to  grapple  with 
them.  And  if  you  confess  that  these  ills  of  life  would  be  too 
much  for  your  natural  piety,  if  you  declare,  that  these  rugged 
8* 


90  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

foundations  and  tempestuous  elements  of  Providence  would 
starve  and  crush  your  confidence  in  God,  while  ours  strikes 
its  roots  in  the  rock,  and  throws  out  its  branches  to  brave 
the  storm,  are  you  entitled  to  taunt  us  with  a  faith  of  puny 
growth?  Meanwhile,  we  willingly  assent  to  the  principle 
which  this  appeal  to  evil  is  designed  to  establish;  that, 
with  much  apparent  order,  there  is  some  apparent  disorder 
in  the  phenomena  of  the  world;  that  from  the  latter,  by 
itself,  we  should  be  unable  to  infer  any  goodness  and  benev- 
olence hi  God;  and  that,  were  not  the  former  clearly  the 
predominant  result  of  natural  laws,  the  character  of  the  Great 
Cause  of  all  things  would  be  involved  in  agonizing  gloom. 
The  mass  of  physical  and  moral  evil  we  do  not  profess 
fully  to  explain;  we  think  that  in  no  system  whatever  is 
there  any  approach  to  an  explanation;  and  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  touch  on  that  dread  subject  with  the  humility  of 
filial  trust,  not  with  the  confidence  of  dogmatic  elucidation. 

Surely  the  fall  of  our  first  parents,  I  shall  be  reminded, 
gives  the  requisite  solution.  The  disaster  which  then  befell 
the  human  race  has  changed  the  primeval  constitution  of 
things ;  introduced  mortality  and  all  the  infirmities  of  which 
it  is  the  result ;  introduced  sin,  and  all  the  seeds  of  vile  affec- 
tions which  it  compels  us  to  inherit ;  introduced  also  the 
penalties  of  sin,  visible  in  part  on  this  scene  of  life,  and  de- 
veloping themselves  in  another  in  anguish  everlasting.  Fresh 
from  the  hand  of  his  Creator,  man  was  innocent,  happy,  and 
holy ;  and  he  it  is,  not  God,  who  has  deformed  the  world 
with  guilt  and  grief. 

Now,  as  a  statement  of  fact,  all  this  may  or  may  not  be 
true.  Of  this  I  say  nothing.  But  who  does  not  see  that,  as 
an  explanation,  it  is  inconsistent  with  itself,  partial  in  its 
application,  and  leaves  matters  incomparably  worse  than  it 
found  them?  It  is  inconsistent  with  itself;  for  Adam,  per- 
fectly pure  and  holy  as  he  is  reputed  to  have  been,  gave  the 
only  proof  that  could  exist  of  his  being  neither,  by  succumb- 
ing to  the  first  temptation  that  came  in  his  way  ;  and  though 
finding  no  enjoyment  but  in  the  contemplation  of  God,  gave 


SCHEME    OF   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  91 

himself  up  to  the  first  advances  of  the  Devil.  Never  surely 
was  a  reputation  for  sanctity  so  cheaply  won.  The  canoniza- 
tions of  the  Romish  Calendar  have  been  curiously  bestowed 
on  beings  sufficiently  remote  from  just  ideas  of  excellence ; 
but  usually  there  is  something  to  be  affirmed  of  them,  legen- 
dary or  otherwise,  which,  if  true,  might  justify  a  momentary 
admiration  But  our  first  parent  was  not  laid  even  under  this 
necessity,  to  obtain  a  glory  greater  than  canonization  ;  he  had 
simply  to  do  nothing,  except  to  fall,  in  order  to  be  esteemed 
the  most  perfectly  holy  of  created  minds.  Most  partial,  too, 
is  this  theory  in  its  application ;  for  disease  and  hardship,  and 
death  unmerited  as  the  infant's,  afflict  the  lower  animal  crea- 
tion. Is  this,  too,  the  result  of  the  fall  ?  If  so,  it  is  an  un- 
redeemed effect ;  if  not,  it  presses  on  the  benevolence  of  the 
Maker,  and,  by  the  physical  analogies  which  connect  man 
with  the  inferior  creatures,  forces  on  us  the  impression,  that 
his  corporeal  sufferings  have  an  original  source  not  dissimilar 
from  theirs.  And  again,  this  explanation  only  serves  to  make 
matters  worse  than  before.  For  how  puerile  is  it  to  suppose 
that  men  will  rest  satisfied  with  tracing  back  their  ills  to 
Adam,  and  refrain  from  asking  who  was  Adam's  cause !  And 
then  comes  upon  us  at  once  the  ancient  dilemma  about  evil ; 
was  it  a  mistake,  or  was  it  malignity,  that  created  so  poor  a 
creature  as  our  progenitor,  and  staked  on  so  precarious  a  will 
the  blessedness  of  a  race  and  the  well-being  of  a  world  ?  So 
far,  this  theory,  falsely  and  injuriously  ascribed  to  Christianity, 
would  leave  us  where  we  were  :  but  it  carries  us  into  deeper 
and  gratuitous  difficulties,  of  which  natural  religion  knows 
nothing,  by  appending  eternal  consequences  to  Adam's  trans- 
gression ;  a  large  portion  of  which,  after  the  most  sanguine 
extension  of  the  efficacy  of  the  atonement,  must  remain  unre- 
deemed. So  that  if,  under  the  eye  of  naturalism,  the  world, 
with  its  generations  dropping  into  the  grave,  must  appear  (as 
we  heard  it  recently  described  *)  like  the  populous  precincts 


*  See  Rev.  H.  M'Neile's  Lecture,  The  Proper  Deity  of  our  Lord  the  only 
Ground  of  Consistency  in  the  Work  of  Redemption,  pp.  339,  340. 


92  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

of  some  castle,  whose  governor  called  his  servants,  after  a 
brief  indulgence  of  liberty  and  peace,  into  a  dark  and  inscru- 
table dungeon,  never  to  return  or  be  seen  again,  the  only 
new  feature  which  this  theory  introduces  into  the  prospect  is 
this :  that  the  interior  of  that  cavernous  prison-house  is  dis- 
closed; and  while  a  few  of  the  departed  are  seen  to  have 
emerged  into  a  fairer  light,  and  to  be  traversing  greener  fields, 
and  sharing  a  more  blessed  liberty  than  they  knew  before,  the 
vast  multitude  are  discerned  in  the  gripe  of  everlasting  chains 
and  the  twist  of  unimaginable  torture.  And  all  this  infliction 
is  a  penal  consequence  of  a  first  ancestor's  transgression! 
Singular  spectacle  to  be  offered  in  vindication  of  the  character 
of  God! 

We  are  warned,  however,  not  to  start  back  from  this  repre- 
sentation, or  to  indulge  hi  any  rash  expression  at  the  view 
which  it  gives  of  the  justice  of  the  Most  High;  for  that, 
beyond  all  doubt,  parallel  instances  occur  in  the  operations 
of  nature ;  and  that,  if  the  system  deduced  from  Scripture 
accords  with  that  which  is  in  action  in  the  creation,  there 
arises  a  strong  presumption  that  both  are  from  the  same 
Author.  The  arrangement  which  is  the  prime  subject  of  ob- 
jection in  the  foregoing  theory,  viz.  the  vicarious  transmission 
of  consequences  from  acts  of  vice  and  virtue,  is  said  to  be 
familiar  to  our  observation  as  a  fact ;  and  ought,  therefore,  to 
present  no  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  admission  of  a  doc- 
trine. Is  it  not  obvious,  for  example,  that  the  guilt  of  a 
parent  may  entail  disease  and  premature  death  on  his  child, 
or  even  remoter  descendants  ?  And  if  it  be  consistent  with 
the  Divine  perfections  that  the  innocent  should  suffer  for 
others'  sins  at  the  distance  of  one  generation,  why  not  at  the 
distance  of  a  thousand?  The  guiltless  victim  is  not  more 
completely  severed  from  identity  with  Adam,  than  he  is  from 
identity  with  his  own  father.  My  reply  is  brief:  I  admit 
both  the  fact  and  the  analogy ;  but  the  fact  is  of  the  excep- 
tional kind,  from  which,  by  itself,  I  could  not  infer  the  justice 
or  the  benevolence  of  the  Creator ;  and  which,  were  it  of 
large  and  prevalent  amount,  I  could  not  even  reconcile  with 


SCHEME    OP   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  93 

these  perfections.  If  then  you  take  it  out  of  the  list  of  ex- 
ceptions and  difficulties,  and  erect  it  into  a  cardinal  rule,  if 
you  interpret  by  it  the  whole  invisible  portion  of  God's  gov- 
ernment, you  turn  the  scale  at  once  against  the  character  of 
the  Supreme,  and  plant  creation  under  a  tyrant's  sway.  And 
this  is  the  fatal  principle  pervading  all  analogical  arguments 
in  defence  of  Trinitarian  Christianity.  No  resemblances  to 
the  system  can  be  found  in  the  universe,  except  in  those 
anomalies  and  seeming  deformities  which  perplex  the  student 
of  Providence,  and  which  would  undermine  his  faith,  were 
they  not  lost  in  the  vast  spectacle  of  beauty  and  of  good. 
These  disorders  are  selected  and  spread  out  to  view,  as  speci- 
mens of  the  Divine  government  of  nature ;  the  mysteries  and 
horrors  which  offend  us  in  the  popular  theology  are  extended 
by  their  side ;  the  comparison  is  made,  point  by  point,  till  the 
similitude  is  undeniably  made  out ;  and  when  the  argument  is 
closed  it  amounts  to  this :  Do  you  doubt  whether  God  could 
break  men's  limbs  ?  You  mistake  his  strength  of  character ; 
only  see  how  he  puts  out  their  eyes !  What  kind  of  impres- 
sion this  reasoning  may  have,  seems  to  me  doubtful  even  to 
agony.  Both  Trinitarian  theology  and  nature,  it  is  trium- 
phantly urged,  must  proceed  from  the  same  Author  ;  ay,  but 
what  sort  of  author  is  that  ?  You  have  led  me,  in  your  quest 
after  analogies,  through  the  great  infirmary  of  God's  creation  ; 
and  so  haunted  am  I  by  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the  lazar- 
house,  that  scarce  can  I  believe  in  anything  but  pestilence  ;  so 
sick  of  soul  have  I  become,  that  the  mountain  breeze  has  lost 
its  scent  of  health ;  and  you  say,  it  is  all  the  same  in  the 
other  world,  and  wherever  the  same  rule  extends :  then  I 
know  my  fate,  that  in  this  universe  Justice  has  no  throne. 
And  thus,  my  friends,  it  comes  to  pass,  that  these  reasoners 
often  gain  indeed  their  victory  ;  but  it  is  known  only  to  the 
Searcher  of  Hearts,  whether  it  is  a  victory  against  natural 
religion,  or  in  favor  of  revealed.  For  this  reason  I  consider 
the  "  Analogy "  of  Bishop  Butler  (one  of  the  profoundest  of 
thinkers,  and  on  purely  moral  subjects  one  of  the  justest  too) 
as  containing,  with  a  design  directly  contrary,  the  most  terrible 


94  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

persuasives  to  Atheism  that  have  ever  been  produced.  The 
essential  error  consists  in  selecting  the  difficulties,  —  which 
are  the  rare,  exceptional  phenomena  of  nature,  —  as  the  basis 
of  analogy  and  argument.  In  the  comprehensive  and  gener- 
ous study  of  Providence,  the  mind  may,  indeed,  already  have 
overcome  the  difficulties,  and,  with  the  lights  recently  gained 
from  the  harmony,  design,  and  order  of  creation,  have  made 
those  shadows  pass  imperceptibly  away ;  but  when  forced 
again  into  their  very  centre,  compelled  to  adopt  them  as  a 
fixed  station  and  point  of  mental  vision,  they  deepen  round 
the  heart  again,  and,  instead  of  illustrating  anything,  become 
solid  darkness  themselves. 

I  cannot  quit  this  topic  without  observing,  however,  that 
there  appears  to  be  nothing  in  nature  and  life  at  all  analo- 
gous to  the  vicarious  principle  attributed  to  God  in  the 
Trinitarian  scheme  of  Redemption.  There  is  nowhere  to  be 
found  any  proper  transfer  or  exchange,  either  of  the  qualities, 
or  of  the  consequences,  of  vice  and  virtue.  The  good  and 
evil  acts  of  men  do  indeed  affect  others  as  well  as  themselves  •, 
the  innocent  suffer  with  the  guilty,  as  in  the  case  before  ad- 
duced, of  a  child  suffering  in  health  by  the  excesses  of  a 
parent.  But  there  is  here  no  endurance  for  another,  similar 
to  Christ's  alleged  endurance  in  the  place  of  men ;  the  in- 
fliction on  the  child  is  not  deducted  from  the  parent ;  it  does 
nothing  to  lighten  his  load,  or  make  it  less  than  it  would 
have  been,  had  he  been  without  descendants ;  nor  does  any 
one  suppose  his  guilt  alleviated  by  the  existence  of  this  in- 
nocent fellow-sufferer.  There  is  a  nearer  approach  to  anal- 
ogy in  those  cases  of  crime,  where  the  perpetrator  seems  to 
escape,  and  to  leave  the  consequences  of  his  act  to  descend 
on  others ;  as  when  the  successful  cheat  eludes  pursuit,  and 
from  the  stolen  gains  of  neighbors  constructs  a  life  of  luxury 
for  himself;  or  when  a  spendthrift  government,  forgetful  of 
its  high  trust,  turning  the  professions  of  patriotism  into  a 
lie,  is  permitted  to  run  a  prosperous  career  for  one  genera- 
tion, and  is  personally  gone  before  the  popular  retribution 
falls,  in  the  next,  on  innocent  successors.  Here,  no  doubt, 


SCHEME    OF   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  95 

the  harmless  suffer  by  the  guilty,  in  a  certain  sense  in  the 
place  of  the  guilty :  but  not  in  the  sense  which  the  analogy 
requires.  For  there  is  still  no  substitution ;  the  distress  of 
the  unoffending  party  is  not  struck  out  of  the  offender's  pun- 
ishment ;  does  not  lessen,  but  rather  aggravates,  his  guilt ; 
and,  instead  of  fitting  him  for  pardon,  tempts  the  natural 
sentiments  of  justice  to  follow  him  with  severer  condemna- 
tion. Nor  does  the  scheme  receive  any  better  illustration 
from  the  fact,  that  whoever  attempts  the  cure  of  misery  must 
himself  suffer ;  must  have  the  shadows  of  ill  cast  upon  his 
spirit  from  every  sadness  he  alleviates ;  and  interpose  himself 
to  stay  the  plague  which,  in  a  world  diseased,  threatens  to 
pass  to  the  living  from  the  dead.  The  parallel  fails,  because 
there  is  still  no  transference :  the  appropriate  sufferings  of 
sin  are  not  given  to  the  philanthropist ;  and  the  noble  pains 
of  goodness  in  him,  the  glorious  strife  of  his  self-sacrifice, 
are  no  part  of  the  penal  consequences  of  others'  guilt ;  they 
do  not  cancel  one  iota  of  those  consequences,  or  make  the 
crimes  which  have  demanded  them,  in  any  way,  more  ready 
for  forgiveness.  Indeed,  it  is  not  in  the  good  man's  suffer- 
ings, considered  as  such,  that  any  efficacy  resides ;  but  in 
his  efforts,  which  may  be  made  with  great  sacrifice  or  with- 
out it,  as  the  case  may  be.  Nor,  at  best,  is  there  any  proper 
annihilation  of  consequences  at  all  accruing  from  his  toils  ;  the 
past  acts  of  wrong  which  call  up  his  resisting  energies  are 
irrevocable,  the  guilt  incurred,  the  penalty  indestructible; 
the  series  of  effects,  foreign  to  the  mind  of  the  perpetrator, 
may  be  abbreviated ;  prevention  applied  to  new  ills  which 
threaten  to  arise ;  but  by  all  this  the  personal  fitness  of  the 
delinquent  for  forgiveness  is  wholly  unaffected ;  the  volition 
of  sin  has  gone  forth,  and  on  it  flies,  as  surely  as  sound 
on  a  vibration  of  the  air,  the  verdict  of  judgment. 

Those  who  are  affected  by  slight  and  failing  analogies 
like  these,  would  do  well  to  consider  one,  sufficiently  obvious, 
which  seems  to  throw  doubt  upon  their  scheme.  The  atone- 
ment is  thought  to  be,  in  respect  to  all  believers,  a  reversal 
of  the  fall :  the  effects  of  the  fall  are  partly  visible  and 


96  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

temporal,  partly  invisible  arid  eternal ;  linked,  however,  to- 
gether as  inseparable  portions  of  the  same  penal  system. 
Now  it  is  evident,  that  the  supposed  redemption  on  the  cross 
has  left  precisely  where  they  were  all  the  visible  effects  of 
the  first  transgression :  sorrow  and  toil  are  the  lot  of  all,  as 
they  have  been  from  of  old ;  the  baptized  infant  utters  a  cry 
as  sad  as  the  unbaptized  ;  and  between  the  holiness  of  the 
true  believer  and  the  worth  of  the  devout  heretic,  there  is 
not  discernible  such  a  difference  as  there  must  have  been 
between  Adam  pure  and  perfect  and  Adam  lapsed  and  lost. 
And  is  it  presumptuous  to  reason  from  the  seen  to  the  unseen, 
from  the  part  which  we  experience  to  that  which  we  can  only 
conceive  ?  If  the  known  effects  are  unredeemed,  the  suspicion 
is  not  unnatural,  that  so  are  the  unknown. 

I  sum  up,  then,  this  part  of  my  subject  by  observing,  that, 
besides  many  inconclusive  appeals  to  nature,  the  advocates  of 
the  vicarious  scheme  are  chargeable  with  this  fundamental 
inconsistency.  They  appear  to  deny  that  the  justice  and 
benevolence  of  God  can  be  reconciled  with  the  phenomena 
of  nature ;  and  say  that  the  evidence  must  be  helped  out  by 
resort  to  their  interpretation  of  Scripture.  When,  having 
heard  this  auxiliary  system,  we  protest  that  it  renders  the 
case  sadder  than  before,  they  assure  us  that  it  is  all  benevo- 
lent and  just,  because  it  has  its  parallel  in  creation.  They 
renounce  and  adopt,  in  the  same  breath,  the  religious  appeal 
to  the  universe  of  God. 

(2.)  Another  inconsistency  appears,  in  the  view  which  this 
theory  gives  of  the  character  of  God. 

It  is  assumed  that,  at  the  era  of  creation,  the  Maker  of 
mankind  had  announced  the  infinite  penalties  which  must 
follow  the  violation  of  his  law;  and  that  their  amount  did 
not  exceed  the  measure  which  his  abhorrence  of  wrong  re- 
quired. «  And  that  which  he  saith,  he  would  not  be  God  if 
he  did  not  perform :  that  which  he  perceived  right,  he  would 
be  unworthy  of  our  trust,  did  he  not  fulfil.  His  veracity 
and  justice,  therefore,  were  pledged  to  adhere  to  the  word  that 
had  gone  forth  ;  and  excluded  the  possibility  of  any  free  and 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  97 

unconditional  forgiveness."  Now  I  would  note,  in  passing, 
that  this  announcement  to  Adam  of  an  eternal  punishment 
impending  over  his  first  sin,  is  simply  a  fiction ;  for  the  warn- 
ing to  him  is  stated  thus  :  "  In  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof, 
thou  shalt  surely  die  "  ;  from  which  our  progenitor  must  have 
been  ingenious  as  a  theologian,  to  extract  the  idea  of  endless 
life  in  hell.  But  to  say  no  more  of  this,  what  notions  of  ve- 
racity have  we  here  ?  When  a  sentence  is  proclaimed  against 
crime,  is  it  indifferent  to  judicial  truth  upon  whom  it  falls  ? 
Personally  addressed  to  the  guilty,  may  it  descend  without  a 
lie  upon  the  guiltless  ?  Provided  there  is  the  suffering,  is  it 
no  matter  where  f  Is  this  the  sense  in  which  God  is  no  re- 
specter of  persons  ?  0  what  deplorable  reflection  of  human 
artifice  is  this,  that  Heaven  is  too  veracious  to  abandon  its 
proclamation  of  menace  against  transgressors,  yet  is  content 
to  vent  it  on  goodness  the  most  perfect !  No  darker  deed  can 
be  imagined,  than  is  thus  ascribed  to  the  Source  of  all  perfec- 
tion, under  the  insulted  names  of  truth  and  holiness.  What 
reliance  could  we  have  on  the  faithfulness  of  such  a  Being? 
If  it  be  consistent  with  his  nature  to  punish  by  substitution, 
what  security  is  there  that  he  will  not  reward  vicariously  ? 
All  must  be  loose  and  unsettled,  the  sentiments  of  reverence 
confused,  the  perceptions  of  conscience  indistinct,  where  the 
terms  expressive  of  those  great  moral  qualities  which  ren- 
der God  himself  most  venerable  are  thus  sported  with  and 
profaned. 

The  same  extraordinary  departure  from  all  intelligible 
meaning  of  words  is  apparent,  when  our  charge  of  vindictive- 
ness  against  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice  is  repelled  as  a  slander. 
If  the  rigorous  refusal  of  pardon  till  the  whole  penalty  has 
been  inflicted,  (when,  indeed,  it  is  no  pardon  at  all,)  be  not 
vindictive,  we  may  ask  to  be  furnished  with  some  better 
definition.  And  though  it  is  said,  that  God's  love  was  mani- 
fested to  us  by  the  gift  of  his  Son,  this  does  but  change  the 
object  on  which  this  quality  is  exercised,  without  removing 
the  quality  itself;  putting  us  indeed  into  the  sunshine  of  his 
grace,  but  the  Saviour  into  the  tempest  of  his  wrath.  Did 
9 


98  INCONSISTENCY   OF   THE 

we  desire  to  sketch  the  most  dreadful  form  of  character,  what 
more  emphatic  combination  could  we  invent  than  this,  —  rigor 
in  the  exaction  of  penal  suffering,  and  indifference  as  to  the 
person  on  whom  it  falls  ? 

But  in  truth  this  system,  in  its  delineations  of  the  Great 
Ruler  of  creation,  bids  defiance  to  all  the  analogies  by  which 
Christ  and  the  Christian  heart  have  delighted  to  illustrate 
his  nature.  A  God  who  could  accept  the  spontaneously  re- 
turning sinner,  and  restore  him  by  corrective  discipline,  is  pro- 
nounced not  worth  serving,  and  an  object  of  contempt.*  If 
so,  Jesus  sketched  an  object  of  contempt  when  he  drew  the 
father  of  the  prodigal  son,  opening  his  arms  to  the  poor 
penitent,  and  needing  only  the  sight  of  his  misery  to  fall  on 
his  neck  with  the  kiss  of  welcome  home.  Let  the  assertions 
be  true,  that  sacrifice  and  satisfaction  are  needful  preliminaries 
to  pardon,  that  to  pay  any  attention  to  repentance  without 
these  is  mere  weakness,  and  that  it  is  a  perilous  deception  to 
teach  the  doctrine  of  mercy  apart  from  the  atonement,  and 
this  parable  of  our  Saviour's  becomes  the  most  pernicious 

*  "  Either  he  "  ("  the  Deity  of  the  Unitarians  ")  "  must  show  no  mercy, 
in  order  to  continue  true  ;  or  he  must  show  no  truth,  in  order  to  exercise 
mercy.  If  he  overlook  man's  guilt,  admit  him  to  the  enjoyment  of  his  favor, 
and  proceed  by  corrective  discipline  to  restore  his  character,  he  unsettles  the 
foundations  of  all  equitable  government,  obliterates  the  everlasting  distinc- 
tions between  right  and  wrong,  spreads  consternation  in  heaven,  and  pro- 
claims impunity  in  hell.  Such  a  God  would  not  be  worth  serving.  Such 
tenderness,  instead  of  inspiring  filial  affection,  would  lead  only  to  reckless 
contempt."  — Mr.  M'Neile's  Lecture,  p.  313. 

Surely  this  is  a  description,  not  of  the  Unitarian,  but  of  the  Lecturer's 
own  creed.  It  certainly  is  no  part  of  his  opponents'  belief,  that  God 
first  admits  the  guilty  to  his  favor,  and  then  ''proceeds"  "to  restore  his 
character."  This  arrangement,  by  which  pardon  precedes  moral  restoration, 
is  that  feature  in  the  Orthodox  theory  of  the  Divine  dealings  against  which 
Unitarians  protest,  and  which  Mr.  M'Neile  himself  insists  upon  as  essential 
throughout  his  Lecture.  "  We  think,"  he  says,  "  that  before  man  can  be 
introduced  to  the  only  true  process  of  improvement,  he  mnsi  first  have  for- 
giveness of  his  guilt."  What  is  this  "  first  "  step,  of  pardon,  but  an  "  over- 
looking of  man's  guilt "  ;  and  what  is  the  second,  of  "  sanctification,"  but  a 
"  restoring  of  character  "  ;  whether  we  say  by  "  corrective  discipline,"  or 
the  "  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,"  matters  not.  Is  it  said  that  the  guilt  is 
not  overlooked,  if  Christ  endured  its  penalty  ?  I  ask,  again,  whether  justice 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  99 

instrument  of  delusion,  —  a  statement,  absolute  and  unqualified, 
of  a  feeble  and  sentimental  heresy.  Who  does  not  see  what 
follows  from  this  scornful  exclusion  of  corrective  punishment  ? 
Suppose  the  infliction  not  to  be  corrective,  that  is,  not  to  be 
designed  for  any  good,  what  then  remains  as  the  cause  of  the 
Divine  retribution  ?  The  sense  of  insult  offered  to  a  law. 
And  thus  we  are  virtually  told,  that  God  must  be  regarded 
with  a  mixture  of  contempt,  unless  he  be  susceptible  of  per- 
sonal affront. 

(3.)  The  last  inconsistency  with  itself,  which  I  shall  point 
out  in  this  doctrine,  will  be  found  in  the  view  which  it  gives 
of  the  work  of  Christ.  Sin,  we  are  assured,  is  necessarily 
infinite.  Its  infinitude  arises  from  its  reference  to  an  Infinite 
Being,  and  involves  as  a  consequence  the  necessity  of  re- 
demption by  Deity  himself. 

The  position,  that  guilt  is  to  be  estimated,  not  by  its 
amount  or  its  motive,  but  by  the  dignity  of  the  being  against 
whom  it  is  directed,  is  illustrated  by  the  case  of  an  insubor- 
dinate soldier,  whose  punishment  is  increased  according  as 

regards  only  the  infliction  of  suffering,  or  its  quantity,  without  caring  about 
its  direction  ?  Was  it  impossible  for  the  stern  righteousness  of  God  freely  to 
forgive  the  penitent  ?  And  how  was  the  injustice  of  liberating  the  guilty 
mended  by  the  torments  of  the  innocent  ?  Here  is  the  verdict  against  sin  : 
"The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die."  And  how  is  this  verdict  executed? 
The  soul  that  had  sinned  does  not  die  ;  and  one  "  that  knew  no  sin  "  dies 
instead.  And  this  is  called  a  divine  union  of  truth  and  mercy ;  being  the 
most  precise  negation  of  both,  of  which  any  conception  can  be  formed. 
First,  to  hang  the  destinies  of  all  mankind  upon  a  solitary  volition  of  their 
first  parents,  and  then  let  loose  a  diabolic  power  on  that  volition  to  break  it 
down  ;  to  vitiate  the  human  constitution  in  punishment  for  the  fall,  and  yet 
continue  to  demand  obedience  to  the  original  and  perfect  moral  law  ;  to 
assert  the  absolute  inflexibility  of  that  holy  law,  yet  all  the  while  have  in 
view  for  the  offenders  a  method  of  escape,  which  violates  every  one  of  its 
provisions,  and  makes  it  all  a  solemn  pretence  ;  to  forgive  that  which  is  in 
itself  unpardonable,  on  condition  of  the  suicide  of  a  God,  is  to  shock  and 
confound  all  notions  of  rectitude,  without  affording  even  the  sublimity  of  a 
savage  grandeur.  This  will  be  called  "  blasphemy  ";  and  it  is  so;  but  the 
blasphemy  is  not  in  the  words,  but  in  the  thing. 

Unitarians  are  falsely  accused  of  representing  God  as  "  overlooking  man's 
guilt."  They  hold,  that  no  guilt  is  overlooked  till  it  is  eradicated  from  the 
soul;  and  that  pardon  proceeds  pari  pastu  with  sanctification. 


100  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

his  rebellion  assails  an  equal  or  any  of  the  many  grades 
amongst  his  superiors.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  it  is  not 
the  dignity  of  the  person,  but  the  magnitude  of  the  effect, 
which  determines  the  severity  of  the  sanction  by  which,  in 
such  an  instance,  law  enforces  order.  Insult  to  a  monarch  is 
more  sternly  treated  than  injury  to  a  subject,  because  it  in- 
curs the  risk  of  wider  and  more  disastrous  consequences,  and 
superadds  to  the  personal  injury  a  peril  to  an  official  power 
which,  not  resting  on  individual  superiority,  but  on  conven- 
tional arrangement,  is  always  precarious.  It  is  not  indeed 
easy  to  form  a  distinct  notion  of  an  infinite  act  in  a  finite 
agent ;  and  still  less  is  it  easy  to  evade  the  inference,  that,  if 
an  immoral  deed  against  God  be  an  infinite  demerit,  a  moral 
deed  towards  him  must  be  an  infinite  merit. 

Passing  by  an  assertion  so  unmeaning,  and  conceding  it 
for  the  sake  of  progress  in  our  argument,  I  would  inquire 
what  is  intended  by  that  other  statement,  that  only  Deity 
can  redeem,  and  that  by  Deity  the  sacrifice  was  made  ?  The 
union  of  the  divine  and  human  natures  in  Christ  is  said  to 
have  made  his  sufferings  meritorious  in  an  infinite  degree. 
Yet  we  are  repeatedly  assured,  that  it  was  in  his  manhood 
only  that  he  endured  and  died.  If  the  divine  nature  in  our 
Lord  had  a  joint  consciousness  with  the  human,  then  did 
God  suffer  and  perish ;  if  not,  then  did  the  man  only  die, 
Deity  being  no  more  affected  by  his  anguish,  than  by 
that  of  the  malefactors  on  either  side.  In  the  one  case  the 
perfections  of  God,  in  the  other  the  reality  of  the  atonement, 
must  be  relinquished.  No  doubt,  the  popular  belief  is,  that 
the  Creator  literally  expired ;  the  hymns  in  common  use  de- 
clare it ;  the  language  of  pulpits  sanctions  it ;  the  consistency 
of  creeds  requires  it ;  but  professed  theologians  repudiate  the 
idea  with  indignation.  Yet  by  silence  or  ambiguous  speech, 
they  encourage,  in  those  whom  they  are  bound  to  enlighten, 
this  degrading  humanization  of  Deity  ;  which  renders  it  im- 
possible for  common  minds  to  avoid  ascribing  to  him  emo- 
tions and  infirmities  totally  irreconcilable  with  the  serene 
perfections  of  the  Universal  Mind.  In  his  influence  on  the 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  101 

worshipper,  He  is  no  Spirit,  who  can  be  invoked  by  his  agony 
and  bloody  sweat,  his  cross  and  passion.  And  the  piety 
that  is  thus  taught  to  bring  its  incense,  however  sincere,  be- 
fore the  mental  image  of  a  being  with  convulsed  features  and 
expiring  cry,  has  little  left  of  that  which  makes  Christian 
devotion  characteristically  venerable. 

II.  I  proceed  to  notice  the  inconsistency  of  the  doctrine 
under  review  with  the  Christian  idea  of  salvation. 

There  is  one  significant  Scriptural  fact,  which  suggests  to 
us  the  best  mode  of  treating  this  part  of  our  subject.  It  is 
this :  that  the  language  supposed  to  teach  the  atoning  efficacy 
of  the  cross  does  not  appear  in  the  New  Testament  till  the 
Gentile  controversy  commences,  nor  ever  occurs  apart  from 
the  treatment  of  that  subject,  under  some  of  its  relations. 
The  cause  of  this  phenomenon  will  presently  appear ;  mean- 
while I  state  it,  in  the  place  of  an  assertion  sometimes  incor- 
rectly made,  viz.  that  the  phraseology  in  question  is  confined 
to  the  Epistles.  Even  this  mechanical  limitation  of  sacrificial 
passages  is  indeed  nearly  true,  as  not  above  three  or  four  have 
strayed  beyond  the  epistolary  boundary  into  the  Gospels  and 
the  book  of  Acts ;  but  the  restriction  in  respect  of  subject, 
which  I  have  stated,  will  be  found,  I  believe,  to  be  absolutely 
exact,  and  to  furnish  the  real  interpretation  to  the  whole 
system  of  language. 

(1.)  Let  us  then  first  test  the  vicarious  scheme  by  refer- 
ence to  the  sentiments  of  Scripture  generally,  and  of  our  Lord 
and  his  Apostles  especially,  where  this  controversy  is  out  of 
the  way.  Are  their  ideas  respecting  human  character,  the 
forgiveness  of  sin,  the  terms  of  everlasting  life,  accordant 
with  the  cardinal  notions  of  a  believer  in  the  atonement  ? 
Do  they,  or  do  they  not,  insist  on  the  necessity  of  a  sacri- 
fice for  human  sin,  as  a  preliminary  to  pardon,  to  sanctifi- 
cation,  to  the  love  of  God?  Do  they,  or  do  they  not, 
direct  a  marked  and  almost  exclusive  attention  to  the 
cross,  as  the  object  to  which,  far  more  than  to  the  life  and 
resurrection  of  our  Lord,  all  faithful  eyes  should  be  di- 
rected ? 

9* 


102  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

(a.)  Now  to   the  fundamental   assertion   of  the    vicarious 
system,  that  the  Deity  cannot,  without  inconsistency  and  im- 
perfection, pardon  on  simple  repentance,  the  whole  tenor  of 
the  Bible  is  one  protracted   and  unequivocal    contradiction. 
So  copious  is  its  testimony  on  this  head,  that  if  the  passages 
containing  it  were  removed,  scarcely  a  shred  of  Scripture  re- 
lating to  the    subject   would    remain.     "  Pardon,  I  beseech 
thee,"  said  Moses,  pleading  for  the  Israelites,  "  the  iniquity 
of  this  people,  according  to  the  greatness  of  thy  mercy,  and 
as  thou  hast  forgiven  this  people    from    Egypt   even    until 
now.     And  the  Lord  said,  /  have  pardoned  according  to  thy 
word"     Will  it  be  affirmed,  that  this  chosen  people  had  their 
eyes  perpetually  fixed  in  faith  on  the  great  propitiation,  which 
was  to  close  their  dispensation,  and  of  which  their  own  cere- 
monial was  a  type  ?  —  that  whenever  penitence  and  pardon 
are  named  amongst  them,  this  reference  is  implied,  and  that 
as  this  faith  was  called  to  mind  and  expressed  in  the  shedding 
of  blood  at  the  altar,  such  sacrificial  offerings  take  the  place, 
in  Judaism,  of  the  atoning  trust  in  Christianity  ?     Well,  then, 
let  us  quit  the  chosen  nation  altogether,  and  go  to  a  heathen 
people,  who  were  aliens  to  their  laws,  their  blood,  their  hopes, 
and  their  religion ;  to  whom  no  sacrifice  was  appointed,  and 
no  Messiah  promised.     If  we   can  discover  the  dealings  of 
God  with  such  a  people,  the  case,  I  presume,  must  be  deemed 
conclusive.     Hear,  then,  what  happened  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tigris.     "  Jonah  began  to  enter   into  the  city,"    (Nineveh,) 
"  and  he  cried  and  said,  yet  forty  days  and  Nineveh  shall  be 
overthrown.     So  the  people  of  Nineveh  believed   God,  and 
proclaimed  a  fast,  and  put  on  sackcloth,  from  the  greatest  of 
them  even  unto  the  least  of  them."     "  Who  can  tell,"  (said 
the  decree  of  the  king  ordaining  the  fast,)  "  if  God  will  turn 
and  repent,  and  turn  away  from  his  fierce  anger,  that  we 
perish  not?     And   God  saw   their  works,  that   they  turned 
from  their  evil  way ;  and  God  repented  of  the  evil  that  he 
had  said  he  would  do  unto  them ;  and  he  did  it  not."     And 
when   the   prophet   was   offended,   first   at  this  clemency  to 
Nineveh,  and  afterwards  that  the  canker  was  sent  to  destroy 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  103 

his  own  favorite  plant,  beneath  whose  shadow  he  sat,  what 
did  Jehovah  say  ?  "  Thou  hast  had  pity  on  the  gourd,  for 
which  thou  hast  not  labored,  neither  madest  it  grow  ;  which 
came  up  in  a  night  and  perished  in  a  night ;  and  should  not 
I  spare  Nineveh,  that  great  city,  wherein  are  more  than  six- 
score  thousand  persons  that  cannot  discern  between  their 
right  hand  and  their  left  hand  ?  "  —  and  who  are  not  likely, 
one  would  think,  to  have  discerned  the  future  merits  of  the 
Redeemer. 

In  truth,  if  even  the  Israelites  had  any  such  prospective 
views  to  Calvary,  if  their  sacrifices  conveyed  the  idea  of  the 
cross  erected  there,  and  were  established  for  this  purpose,  the 
fact  must  have  been  privately  revealed  to  modern  theologians ; 
for  not  a  trace  of  it  can  be  found  in  the  Hebrew  writings.  It 
must  be  thought  strange,  that  a  prophetic  reference  so  habit- 
ual should  be  always  a  secret  reference ;  that  a  faith  so  fun- 
damental should  be  so  mysteriously  suppressed ;  that  the 
uppermost  idea  of  a  nation's  mind  should  never  have  found 
its  way  to  lips  or  pen.  "  But  if  it  were  not  so,"  we  are  re- 
minded, "  if  the  Jewish  ritual  prefigured  nothing  ulterior,  it 
was  revolting,  trifling,  savage ;  its  worship  a  butchery,  and 
the  temple  courts  no  better  than  a  slaughter-house."  And 
were  they  not  equally  so,  though  the  theory  of  types  be  true  ? 
If  neither  priest  nor  people  could  see  at  the  time  the  very 
thing  which  the  ceremonial  was  constructed  to  reveal,  what 
advantage  is  it  that  divines  can  see  it  now  ?  And  even  if  the 
notion  was  conveyed  to  the  Jewish  mind,  (which  the  whole 
history  shows  not  to  have  been  the  fact,)  was  it  necessary 
that  hecatombs  should  be  slain,  age  after  age,  to  intimate 
obscurely  an  idea,  which  one  brief  sentence  might  have  lucidly 
expressed  ?  The  idea,  however,  it  is  evident,  slipped  through 
after  all ;  for  when  Messiah  actually  came,  the  one  great 
thing  which  the  Jews  did  not  know  and  believe  about  him 
was,  that  he  could  die  at  all.  So  much  for  the  preparatory 
discipline  of  fifteen  centuries ! 

There  is  no  reason,  then,  why  anything  should  be  supplied 
in  our  thoughts,  to  alter  the  plain  meaning  of  the  announce- 


104  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

ments  of  prophets  and  holy  men,  of  God's  unconditional  for- 
giveness on  repentance.  "  Thou  desirest  not  sacrifice,  else 
would  I  give  it;  thou  delightest  not  in  burnt-offering;  the 
sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit ;  a  broken  and  a  con- 
trite heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise."  "Wash  you, 
make  you  clean,"  says  the  prophet  Isaiah  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord ;  "  put  away  the  evil  of  your  doings  from  before  mine 
eyes,  cease  to  do  evil,  learn  to  do  well ;  seek  judgment,  re- 
lieve the  oppressed,  judge  the  fatherless,  plead  for  the  widow. 
Come  now,  and  let  us  reason  together,  saith  the  Lord ;  though 
your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  white  as  snow  ;  though 
they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall  be  as  wool."  Once 
more,  "  When  I  say  unto  the  wicked,  thou  shalt  surely  die ; 
if  he  turn  from  his  sin,  and  do  that  which  is  lawful  and  right ; 
if  the  wicked  restore  the  pledge,  give  again  that  he  hath 
robbed,  walk  in  the  statutes  of  life  without  committing  in- 
iquity ;  he  shall  surely  live,  he  shall  not  die."  Nor  are  the 
teachings  of  the  Gospel  at  all  less  explicit.  Our  Lord  treats 
largely  and  expressly  on  the  doctrine  of  forgiveness  in  several 
parables,  and  especially  that  of  the  prodigal  son ;  and  omits 
all  allusion  to  the  propitiation  for  the  past.  He  furnishes  an 
express  definition  of  the  terms  of  eternal  life :  "  Good  master, 
what  good  thing  shall  I  do,  that  I  may  have  eternal  life? 
And  he  said  unto  him,  Why  callest  thou  me  good  ?  there  is 
none  good  save  one,  that  is  God ;  but  if  thou  wilt  enter  into 
life,  keep  the  commandments."  And  Jesus  adds,  "If  thou 
wilt  be  perfect,  go  and  sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the 
poor,  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven ;  and  come, 
follow  me."  This  silence  on  the  prime  condition  of  pardon 
cannot  be  explained  by  the  fact,  that  the  crucifixion  had  not 
yet  taken  place,  and  could  not  safely  be  alluded  to,  before  the 
course  of  events  had  brought  it  into  prominent  notice.  For 
we  have  the  preaching  of  the  Apostles,  after  the  ascension, 
recorded  at  great  length,  and  under  very  various  circum- 
stances, in  the  book  of  Acts.  We  have  the  very  "words 
whereby,"  according  to  the  testimony  of  an  angel,  "  Cornelius 
and  all  his  house  shall  be  saved  " ;  these,  one  would  think, 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  105 

would  be  worth  hearing  in  this  cause  :  "  God  anointed  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  with  power ;  who  went 
about  doing  good,  and  healing  all  that  were  oppressed  of  the 
Devil,  for  God  was  with  him.  And  we  are  witnesses  of  all 
things  which  he  did,  both  in  the  land  of  the  Jews  and  in 
Jerusalem ;  whom  they  slew  and  hanged  on  a  tree.  Him  God 
raised  up  the  third  day,  and  showed  openly;  not  to  all  the 
people,  but  unto  witnesses  chosen  before  of  God,  even  to  us, 
who  did  eat  and  drink  with  him  after  he  rose  from  the  dead. 
And  he  commanded  us  to  preach  unto  the  people,  and  to 
testify  that  it  is  he  who  was  ordained  of  God  to  be  the  judge 
of  quick  and  dead.  To  him  give  all  the  prophets  witness, 
that  through  his  name  whosoever  believeth  in  him  shall 
receive  remission  of  sins."  Did  an  Evangelical  missionary 
dare  to  preach  in  this  style  now,  he  would  be  immediately 
disowned  by  his  employers,  and  dismissed  as  a  disguised 
Socinian,  who  kept  back  all  the  "  peculiar  doctrines  of  the 
Gospel." 

(b.)  The  emphatic  mention  of  the  resurrection  by  the 
Apostle  Peter  in  this  address,  is  only  a  particular  instance 
of  a  system  which  pervades  the  whole  preaching  of  the  first 
missionaries  of  Christ.  This,  and  not  the  cross,  with  its  sup- 
posed effects,  is  the  grand  object  to  which  they  call  the  atten- 
tion and  the  faith  of  their  hearers.  I  cannot  quote  to  you 
the  whole  book  of  Acts  ;  but  every  reader  knows,  that  "  Jesus 
and  the  resurrection  "  constitutes  the  leading  theme,  the  cen- 
tral combination  of  ideas  in  all  its  discourses.  This  truth 
was  shed,  from  Peter's  tongue  of  fire,  on  the  multitudes  that 
heard  amazed  the  inspiration  of  the  day  of  Pentecost.  Again, 
it  was  his  text,  when,  passing  beneath  the  beautiful  gate,  he 
made  the  cripple  leap  for  joy ;  and  then,  with  the  flush  of 
this  deed  still  fresh  upon  him,  leaned  against  a  pillar  in  Solo- 
mon's porch,  and  spake  in  explanation  to  the  awe-struck 
people,  thronging  in  at  the  hour  of  prayer.  Before  priests 
and  rulers,  before  Sanhedrim  and  populace,  the  same  tale  is 
told  again,  to  the  utter  exclusion,  be  it  observed,  of  the 
essential  doctrine  of  the  cross.  The  authorities  of  the  temple, 


106  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

we  are  told,  were  galled  and  terrified  at  the  Apostle's  preach- 
ing ;  "  naturally  enough,"  it  will  be  said,  "  since,  the  real 
sacrifice  having  been  offered,  their  vocation,  which  was  to 
make  the  prefatory  and  typical  oblation,  was  threatened  with 
destruction."  But  no,  this  is  not  the  reason  given :  "  They 
were  grieved  because  they  preached,  through  Jesus,  the  resur- 
rection from  the  dead."  Paul,  too,  while  his  preaching  was 
spontaneous  and  free,  and  until  he  had  to  argue  certain  con- 
troversies which  have  long  ago  become  obsolete,  manifested  a 
no  less  remarkable  predilection  for  this  topic.  Before  Felix, 
he  declares  what  was  the  grand  indictment  of  his  countiymen 
against  him :  "  Touching  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  I  am 
called  in  question  of  you  this  day."  Follow  him  far  away 
from  his  own  land ;  and,  with  foreigners,  he  harps  upon  the 
same  subject,  as  if  he  were  a  man  of  one  idea ;  which,  in- 
deed, according  to  our  opponents'  scheme,  he  ought  to  have 
been,  only  it  should  have  been  another  idea.  Seldom,  how- 
ever, can  we  meet  with  a  more  exuberant  mind  than  Paul's  ; 
yet  the  resurrection  obviously  haunts  him  wherever  he  goes : 
in  the  synagogue  of  Antioch  you  hear  him  dwelling  on  it  with 
all  the  energy  of  his  inspiration  ;  and,  at  Athens,  it  was  this 
on  which  the  scepticism  of  Epicureans  and  Stoics  fastened  for 
a  scoff.  In  his  Epistles,  too,  where  he  enlarges  so  much  on 
justification  by  faith,  when  we  inquire  what  precisely  is  this 
faith,  and  what  the  object  it  is  to  contemplate  and  embrace, 
this  remarkable  fact  presents  itself:  that  the  one  only  im- 
portant thing  respecting  Christ,  which  is  never  once  mentioned 
as  the  object  of  justifying  faith,  is  Ms  death,  and  blood,  and 
cross.  "  Faith  "  by  itself,  the  "  faith  of  Jesus  Christ,"  «  faith 
of  the  Gospel,"  "  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,"  are  expressions 
of  constant  occurrence ;  and  wherever  this  general  description 
is  replaced  by  a  more  specific  account  of  this  justifying  state 
of  mind,  it  is  faith  in  the  resurrection  on  which  attention  is 
fastened.  "It  is  Christ  that  died,  yea,  rather,  that  is  risen 
again."  "  He  was  delivered  for  our  offences,  and  raised  again 
for  our  justification"  "  Faith  shall  be  imputed  to  us  for 
righteousness,  if  we  believe  on  him  that  raised  up  Jesus  our 


SCHEME    OP   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  107 

Lord  from  the  dead"  Hear,  too,  the  Apostle's  definition  of 
saving  faith  :  "  If  thou  shalt  confess  with  thy  mouth  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  shalt  believe  in  thy  heart  that  God  hath  raised  him 
from  the  dead,  thou  shalt  be  saved."  The  only  instance  in 
which  the  writings  of  St.  Paul  appear  to  associate  the  word 
faith  with  the  death  of  Christ,  is  the  following  text :  "  Whom 
God  hath  set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation  through  faith  in  his 
blood  "  ;  and  in  this  case  the  Apostle's  meaning  would,  I  con- 
ceive, be  more  faithfully  given  by  destroying  this  conjunction, 
and  disposing  the  words  thus  :  "  Whom  God  hath  set  forth  to 
be  a  propitiation  by  his  blood,  through  faith."  The  idea  of  his 
blood,  or  death,  belongs  to  the  word  propitiation,  not  to  the  word 
faith.  To  this  translation  no  Trinitarian  scholar,  I  am  per- 
suaded, can  object ;  *  and  when  the  true  meaning  of  the  writer's 
sacrificial  language  is  explained,  the  distinction  will  appear  to 
be  not  unimportant.  At  present  I  am  concerned  only  with 
the  defence  of  my  position,  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  never 
mentioned  as  the  object  of  saving  faith ;  but  that  his  resur- 
rection unquestionably  is.  This  phenomenon  in  Scripture 
phraseology  is  so  extraordinary,  so  utterly  repugnant  to  every- 
thing which  a  hearer  of  orthodox  preaching  would  expect, 
that  I  hardly  expect  my  affirmation  of  it  to  be  believed.  The 
two  ideas  of  faith,  and  of  our  Lord's  death,  are  so  naturally 
and  perpetually  united  in  the  mind  of  every  believer  in  the 
atonement,  that  it  must  appear  to  him  incredible  that  they 
should  never  fall  together  in  the  writings  of  the  Apostles. 
However,  I  have  stated  my  fact ;  and  it  is  for  you  to  bring  it 
to  the  test  of  Scripture. 

(c.)  Independently  of  all  written  testimony,  moral  reasons, 
we  are  assured,  exist,  which  render  an  absolute  remission  for 
the  past  essential  to  a  regenerated  life  for  the  future.  Our 
human  nature  is  said  to  be  so  constituted,  that  the  burden 


*  Mr.  Buddicom  has  the  following  note,  intimating  his  approbation  of  this 
rendering  :  "  Some  of  the  best  commentators  have  connected  ev  r<3  OVTOV 
aifian,  not  with  8ia  TTJS  TrtWeeof ,  but  with  tAcKrrijpioi*  •  and,  accordingly, 
Bishop  Bull  renders  the  passage,  '  Quern  proposuit  Deus  placamentum  in 
sanguine  suo  per  fidem.'  "  —  Lecture  on  Atonement,  p.  496. 


108  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

of  sin,  on  the  conscience  once  awakened,  is  intolerable  ;  our 
spirit  cries  aloud  for  mercy  ;  yet  is  so  straitened  by  the  bands 
of  sin,  so  conscious  of  the  sad  alliance  lingering  still,  so  full 
of  hesitancy  and  shame  when  seeking  the  relief  of  prayer,  so 
blinded  by  its  tears  when  scanning  the  heavens  for  an  opening 
of  light  and  hope,  that  there  is  no  freedom,  no  unrestrained 
and  happy  love  to  God ;  but  a  pinched  and  anxious  mind, 
bereft  of  power,  striving  to  work  with  bandaged  or  paralytic 
will,  instead  of  trusting  itself  to  loosened  and  self-oblivious 
affections.  Hence  it  is  thought,  that  the  sin  of  the  past  must 
be  cancelled,  before  the  holiness  of  the  future  can  be  com- 
menced ;  that  it  is  a  false  order  to  represent  repentance  as 
leading  to  pardon,  because  to  be  forgiven  is  the  prerequisite 
to  love.  We  cannot  forget,  however,  how  distinctly  and 
emphatically  he  who,  after  God,  best  knew  what  is  in 
man,  has  contradicted  this  sentiment ;  for  when  that  sinful 
woman,  whose  presence  in  the  house  shocked  the  sanctimo- 
nious Pharisee,  stood  at  his  feet  as  he  reclined,  washing 
them  with  her  tears,  and  kissing  them  with  reverential 
lips,  Jesus  turned  to  her  and  said,  "  Her  sins,  which  are 
many,  are  forgiven  ;  for  she  loved  much."  From  him,  then, 
we  learn,  what  our  own  hearts  would  almost  teach,  that  love 
may  be  the  prelude  to  forgiveness,  as  well  as  forgiveness  the 
preparative  for  love. 

At  the  same  time  let  me  acknowledge,  that  this  statement 
respecting  the  moral  effects  of  conscious  pardon,  to  which  I 
have  invoked  Jesus  to  reply,  is  by  no  means  an  unmixed 
error.  It  touches  upon  a  very  profound  and  important  truth  ; 
and  I  can  never  bring  myself  to  regard  that  assurance  of 
Divine  forgiveness,  which  the  doctrine  of  atonement  imparts, 
as  a  demoralizing  state  of  mind,  encouraging  laxity  of  con- 
science and  a  continuance  in  sin.  The  sense  of  pardon,  doubt- 
less, reaches  the  secret  springs  of  gratitude,  presents  the  soul 
with  an  object,  strange  before,  of  new  and  divine  affection, 
and  binds  the  child  of  redemption,  by  all  generous  and  filial 
obligations,  to  serve  with  free  and  willing  heart  the  God  who 
hath  gone  forth  to  meet  him.  That  the  motives  of  self- 


SCHEME    OF   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  109* 

interest  are  diminished  in  such  a  case,  is  a  trifle  that  need 
occasion  small  anxiety.  For  the  human  heart  is  no  laborer 
for  hire  ;  and,  where  there  is  opportunity  afforded  for  true 
and  noble  love,  will  thrust  away  the  proffered  wages,  and  toil 
rather  in  a  free  and  thankful  spirit.  If  we  are  to  compare, 
as  a  source  of  duty,  the  grateful  with  the  merely  prudential 
temper,  rather  may  we  trust  the  first,  as  not  the  worthier 
pnly,  but  the  stronger  too ;  and  till  we  obtain  emancipation 
from  the  latter,  —  forget  the  computations  of  hope  and  fear, 
and  precipitate  ourselves  for  better  or  for  worse  on  some  object 
of  divine  love  and  trust,  —  our  nature  will  be  puny  and  weak, 
our  wills  will  turn  in  sickness  from  their  duty,  and  our  affec- 
tions shrink  in  aversion  from  their  heaven.  But  though  per- 
sonal gratitude  is  better  than  prudence,  there  is  a  higher 
service  still.  A  more  disinterested  love  may  spring  from  the 
contemplation  of  what  God  is  in  himself,  than  from  the  rec- 
ollection of  what  he  has  done  for  us  ;  and  when  this  mingles 
most  largely  as  an  element  among  our  springs  of  action ; 
when,  humbled  indeed  by  a  knowledge  of  dangers  that  await 
us,  and  thankful,  too,  for  the  blessings  spread  around  us,  we 
yet  desire  chiefly  to  be  fitting  children  of  the  everlasting 
Father  and  the  holy  God ;  when  we  venerate  him  for  the 
graciousness,  and  purity,  and  majesty  of  his  spirit,  imper- 
sonated in  Jesus,  and  resolve  to  serve  him  truly,  before  he 
has  granted  the  desire  of  our  heart,  and  because  he  is  of  a 
nature  so  sublime  and  merciful  and  good  ;  —  then  are  we  in 
the  condition  of  her  who  bent  over  the  feet  of  Christ;  and 
we  are  forgiven,  because  we  have  loved  much. 

(2.)  Let  us  now,  in  conclusion,  turn  our  attention  to  those 
portions  of  the  New  Testament  which  speak  of  the  death  of 
Christ  as  the  means  of  redemption. 

I  have  said,  that  these  are  to  be  found  exclusively  in  pas- 
sages of  the  sacred  writings  which  treat  of  the  Gentile  con- 
troversy, or  of  topics  immediately  connected  with  it.  This 
controversy  arose  naturally  out  of  the  design  of  Providence 
to  make  the  narrow,  exclusive,  ceremonial  system  of  Judaism 
give  birth  to  the  universal  and  spiritual  religion  of  the  Gos- 
10 


110  INCONSISTENCY   OF   THE 

pel ;  from  Clod's  method  of  expanding  the  Hebrew  Messiah 
into  the  Saviour  of  humanity.  For  this  the  nation  was  not 
prepared ;  to  this  even  the  Hebrew  Christians  could  not  easily 
conform  their  faith ;  and  in  the  achievement  of  this,  or  in 
persuading  the  world  that  it  was  achieved,  did  Paul  spend  his 
noble  life,  and  write  his  astonishing  Epistles.  The  Jews  knew 
that  the  Deliverer  was  to  be  of  their  peculiar  stock,  and  their 
royal  lineage  ;  they  believed  that  he  would  gather  upon  him- 
self all  the  singularities  of  their  race,  and  be  a  Hebrew  to 
intensity;  that  he  would  literally  restore  the  kingdom  to 
Israel;  ay,  and  extend  it  too,  immeasurably  beyond  the 
bounds  of  its  former  greatness ;  till,  in  fact,  it  swallowed  up 
all  existing  principalities,  and  powers,  and  thrones,  and  do- 
minions, and  became  coextensive  with  the  earth.  Then  in 
Jerusalem,  as  the  centre  of  the  vanquished  nations,  before 
the  temple,  as  the  altar  of  a  humbled  world,  did  they  expect 
the  Messiah  to  erect  his  throne ;  and  when  he  had  taken  the 
seat  of  judgment,  to  summon  all  the  tribes  before  his  tribunal, 
and  pass  on  the  Gentiles,  excepting  the  few  who  might  submit 
to  the  law,  a  sentence  of  perpetual  exclusion  from  his  realm ; 
while  his  own  people  would  be  invited  to  the  seats  of  honor, 
occupy  the  place  of  authority,  and  sit  down  with  him  (the 
greatest  at  his  right  hand  and  his  left)  at  his  table  in  his 
kingdom.  The  holy  men  of  old  were  to  come  on  earth  again 
to  see  this  day.  And  many  thought  that  every  part  of  the 
realm  thus  constituted,  and  all  its  inhabitants,  would  never 
die :  but,  like  the  Messiah  himself,  and  the  patriarchs  whom 
he  was  to  call  to  life,  would  be  invested  with  immortality. 
None  were  to  be  admitted  to  these  golden  days  except  them- 
selves ;  all  else  to  be  left  in  outer  darkness  from  this  region 
of  light,  and  there  to  perish  and  be  seen  no  more.  The  grand 
title  to  admission  was  conformity  with  the  Mosaic  law ;  the 
most  ritually  scrupulous  were  the  most  secure  ;  and  the  care- 
less Israelite,  who  forgot  or  omitted  an  offering,  a  tithe,  a 
Sabbath  duty,  might  incur  the  penalty  of  exclusion  and  death : 
the  law  prescribed  such  mortal  punishment  for  the  smallest 
offence ;  and  no  one,  therefore,  could  feel  himself  ready  with 


SCHEME    OF   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  Ill 

his  claim,  if  he  had  not  yielded  a  perfect  obedience.  If  God 
were  to  admit  him  on  any  other  plea,  it  would  be  of  pure 
grace  and  goodness,  and  not  in  fulfilment  of  any  promise. 

The  Jews,  being  scattered  over  the  civilized  world,  and 
having  synagogues  in  every  city,  came  into  perpetual  contact 
with  other  people.  Nor  was  it  possible  that  the  Gentiles, 
among  whom  they  lived,  should  notice  the  singular  purity 
and  simplicity  of  the  Israelitish  Theism,  without  some  of  them 
being  struck  with  its  spirit,  attracted  by  its  sublime  pi'in- 
ciples,  and  disposed  to  place  themselves  in  religious  relations 
with  that  singular  people.  Having  been  led  into  admiration, 
and  even  profession,  of  the  nation's  theology,  they  could  not 
but  desire  to  share  their  hopes  ;  which  indeed  were  an  in- 
tegral part  of  their  religion,  and,  at  the  Christian  era,  the  one 
element  in  it  to  which  they  were  most  passionately  attached. 
But  this  was  a  stretch  of  charity  too  great  for  any  Hebrew ; 
or,  at  all  events,  if  such  admission  were  ever  to  be  thought 
of,  it  must  be  only  on  condition  of  absolute  submission  to 
the  requirements  of  the  law.  The  Gentile  would  naturally 
plead,  that,  as  God  had  not  made  him  of  the  chosen  nation, 
he  had  given  him  no  law,  except  that  of  conscience;  that, 
being  without  the  law,  he  must  be  a  law  unto  himself;  and 
that,  if  he  had  lived  according  to  his  light,  he  could  not  be 
justly  excluded  on  the  ground  of  accidental  disqualification. 
Possibly,  in  the  provocation  of  dispute,  the  Gentile  might 
sometimes  become  froward  and  insolent  in  his  assertion  of 
claim ;  and,  in  the  pride  of  his  heart,  demand  as  a  right  that 
which,  at  most,  could  only  be  humbly  hoped  for  as  a  priv- 
ilege and  a  free  gift. 

Thus  were  the  parties  mutually  placed  to  whom  the  Deliv- 
erer came.  Thus  dense  and  complicated  was  the  web  of 
prejudice  which  clung  round  the  early  steps  of  the  Gospel ; 
and  which  must  be  burst  or  disentangled  ere  the  glad  tidings 
could  have  free  course  and  be  glorified.  How  did  Providence 
develop  from  such  elements  the  divine  and  everlasting  truth  ? 
Not  by  neglecting  them,  and  speaking  to  mankind  as  if  they 
had  no  such  ideas ;  not  by  forbidding  his  messengers  and 


112  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

teachers  to  have  any  patience  with  them ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, by  using  these  very  notions  as  temporary  means  to  his 
everlasting  ends ;  by  touching  this  and  that  with  light  before 
the  eyes  of  Apostles,  as  if  to  say,  there  are  good  capabilities 
in  these  ;  the  truth  may  be  educed  from  them  so  gently  and 
so  wisely,  that  the  world  will  find  itself  in  light,  without  per- 
ceiving how  it  has  been  quitting  the  darkness. 

So  long  as  Christ  remained  on  earth,  he  necessarily  con- 
fined his  ministry  to  his  nation.  He  would  not  have  been 
the  Messiah  had  he  done  otherwise.  By  birth,  by  lineage, 
by  locality,  by  habit,  he  was  altogether  theirs.  Whoever, 
then,  of  his  own  people,  during  his  mortal  life,  believed  in 
him  and  followed  him,  became  a  subject  of  the  Messiah; 
ready,  it  was  supposed,  even  by  the  Apostles  themselves,  to 
enter  the  glory  of  his  kingdom,  whenever  it  should  please 
him  to  assume  it;  qualified  at  once,  by  the  combination  of 
pedigree  and  of  belief,  to  enter  into  life,  to  become  a  mem- 
ber of  the  kingdom  of  God,  to  take  a  place  among  the  elect ; 
for  by  all  these  phrases  was  described  the  admission  to  the 
expected  realm.  If,  then,  Jesus  had  never  suffered  and 
died,  if  he  had  never  retired  from  this  world,  but  stayed  to 
fulfil  the  anticipations  of  his  first  followers,  his  Messianic 
kingdom  might  have  included  all  the  converts  of  the  Israelitish 
stock.  From  the  exclusion  which  fell  on  others,  they  would 
have  obtained  salvation.  Hence,  it  is  never  in  connection 
with  the  first  Jewish  Christians  that  the  death  of  Christ  is 
mentioned. 

It  was  otherwise,  however,  with  the  Gentiles.  They  could 
not  become  his  followers  in  his  mortal  lifetime ;  and  had  a 
Messianic  reign  then  been  set  up,  they  must  have  been  ex- 
cluded ;  no  missionary  would  have  been  justified  in  addressing 
them  with  invitation  ;  they  could  not,  as  it  was  said,  have 
entered  into  life.  The  Messiah  must  cease  to  be  Jewish, 
before  he  could  become  universal ;  and  this  implied  his  death, 
by  which  alone  the  personal  relations,  which  made  him  the 
property  of  a  nation,  could  be  annihilated.  To  this  he  sub- 
mitted ;  he  disrobed  himself  of  his  corporeality,  he  became 


SCHEME    OP    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  113 

an  immortal  spirit ;  thereby  instantly  burst  his  religion  open 
to  the  dimensions  of  the  world ;  and,  as  he  ascended  to  the 
skies,  sent  it  forth  to  scatter  the  seeds  of  blessing  over  the 
field  of  the  world,  long  ploughed  with  cares,  and  moist  with 
griefs,  and  softened  now  to  nourish  in  its  bosom  the  tree  of 
Life. 

Now,  how  would  the  effect  of  this  great  revolution  be  de- 
scribed to  the  proselyte  Gentiles,  so  long  vainly  praying  for 
admission  to  the  Israelitish  hope.  At  once  it  destroyed  their 
exclusion ;  put  away  as  valueless  the  Jewish  claims  of  cir- 
cumcision and  law ;  nailed  the  handwriting  of  ordinances  to 
the  cross ;  reconciled  them  that  had  been  afar  off;  redeemed 
them  to  God  by  his  blood,  out  of  every  tongue,  and  kindred, 
and  people,  and  nation  ;  washed  them  in  his  blood ;  justified 
them  by  his  resurrection  and  ascension ;  an  expression,  I 
would  remark,  unmeaning  on  any  other  explanation. 

Even  during  our  Lord's  personal  ministry  his  approach- 
ing death  is  mentioned  as  the  means  of  introducing  the  Gen- 
tiles into  his  Messianic  kingdom.  He  adverts  repeatedly  to 
his  cross,  as  designed  to  widen,  by  their  admission,  the  ex- 
tent of  his  sway ;  and,  according  to  Scripture  phrase,  to  yield 
to  him  "  much  fruit."  He  was  already  on  his  last  fatal  visit 
to  Jerusalem,  when,  taking  the  hint  from  the  visit  of  some 
Greeks  to  him,  he  exclaimed :  "  The  hour  is  come,  that  the 
Son  of  man  should  be  glorified.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  except  a  grain  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it 
abideth  alone :  but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit" 
He  adds,  in  allusion  to  the  death  he  should  die  :  "  And  I,  if 
I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me" 
It  is  for  this  end  that  he  resigns  for  a  while  his  life,  —  that  lie 
may  bring  in  the  wanderers  who  are  not  of  the  common- 
wealth of  Israel :  "  Other  sheep  I  have,  which  are  not  of 
this  fold:  them  also  I  must  bring,  and  they  shall  hear  my 
voice ;  and  there  shall  be  one  fold  and  one  shepherd :  there- 
fore doth  my  Father  love  me,  because  I  lay  down  my  life,  that 
I  may  take  it  again."  Many  a  parable  did  Jesus  utter,  pro- 
claiming his  Father's  intended  mercy  to  the  uncovenanted 
10* 


114  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

nations :  but  for  himself  personally  lie  declared,  "  I  am  not 
sent,  but  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel."  His 
advent  was  a  promise  of  their  economy ;  his  office,  the  tra- 
ditionary hope  of  their  fathers  ;  his  birth,  his  life,  his  person, 
were  under  the  Law,  and  excluded  him  from  relations  to 
those  who  were  beyond  its  obligations.  On  the  cross,  all  the 
connate  peculiarities  of  the  Nazarene  ceased  to  exist :  when 
the  seal  of  the  sepulchre  gave  way,  the  seal  of  the  law  was 
broken  too ;  the  nationality  of  his  person  passed  away ;  for 
how  can  an  immortal  be  a  Jew  ?  This,  then,  was  the  time  to 
open  wide  the  scope  of  his  mission,  and  to  invite  to  God's 
acceptance  those  that  fear  him  in  every  nation.  Though,  be- 
fore, the  disciple  might  "  have  known  Christ  after  the  flesh," 
and  followed  his  steps  as  the  Hebrew  Messiah,  "yet  now 
henceforth  was  he  to  know  him  so  no  more " ;  these  "  old 
things  had  passed  away,"  since  he  had  "  died  for  all,"  —  died 
to  become  universal,  —  to  drop  all  exclusive  relations,  and 
"  reconcile  the  world,"  the  Gentile  world,  to  God.  Observe 
to  whom  this  "  ministry  of  reconciliation "  is  especially  con- 
fided. As  if  to  show  that  it  is  exclusively  the  risen  Christ 
who  belongs  to  all  men,  and  that  his  death  was  the  instrument 
of  the  Gentiles'  admission,  their  great  Apostle  was  one  Paul, 
who  had  not  known  the  Saviour  in  his  mortal  life ;  who  never 
listened  to  his  voice  till  it  spake  from  heaven ;  who  himself 
was  the  convert  of  his  ascension ;  and  bore  to  him  the  rela- 
tion, not  of  subject  to  the  person  of  a  Hebrew  king,  but  of 
spirit  to  spirit,  unembarrassed  by  anything  earthly,  legal,  or 
historical.  Well  did  Paul  understand  the  freedom  and  the 
sanctity  of  this  relation ;  and  around  the  idea  of  the  Heavenly 
Messiah  gathered  all  his  conceptions  of  the  spirituality  of  the 
Gospel,  of  its  power  over  the  unconscious  affections,  rather 
than  a  reluctant  will.  His  believing  countrymen  were  afraid 
to  disregard  the  observances  of  the  law,  lest  it  should  be  a 
disloyalty  to  God,  and  disqualify  them  for  the  Messiah's 
welcome,  when  he  came  to  take  his  power  and  reign.  Paul 
tells  them,  that,  while  their  Lord  remained  in  this  mortal 
state,  they  were  right ;  as  representative  of  the  law,  and  filling 


SCHEME    OP   VICARIOUS   REDEMPTION.  115 

an  office  created  by  the  religion  of  Judaism,  he  could  not  but 
have  held  them  then  to  its  obligations  ;  nor  could  they,  without 
infidelity,  have  neglected  its  claims,  any  more  than  a  wife  can 
innocently  separate  herself  from  a  living  husband.  But  as 
the  death  of  the  man  sets  the  woman  free,  and  makes  null  the 
law  of  their  union,  so  the  decease  of  Christ's  body  emanci- 
pates his  followers  from  all  legal  relations  to  him ;  and  they 
are  at  liberty  to  wed  themselves  anew  to  the  risen  Christ, 
who  dwells  where  no  ordinance  is  needful,  no  tie  permitted 
but  of  the  spirit,  and  all  are  as  the  angels  of  God.  Surely, 
then,  this  mode  of  conception  explains  why  the  death  of  Jesus 
constitutes  a  great  date  in  the  Christian  economy,  especially 
as  expounded  by  the  friend  and  Apostle  of  those  who  were 
not  "  Jews  by  nature,  but  shiners  of  the  Gentiles."  Had  he 
never  died,  they  must  have  remained  aliens  from  his  sway ; 
the  enemies  against  whom  his  power  must  be  directed ;  with- 
out hope  in  the  day  of  his  might ;  strangers  to  God  and  his 
vicegerent. 

But,  while  thus  they  "  were  yet  without  strength,  Christ 
died  for "  these  "  ungodly " ;  died  to  put  himself  into  con- 
nection with  them,  else  impossible ;  and,  rising  from  death, 
drew  them  after  him  into  spiritual  existence  on  earth,  analo- 
gous to  that  which  he  passed  in  heaven.  "  You,"  says  their 
Apostle,  "being  dead  in  your  sins  and  the  uncircumcision 
of  your  flesh,  hath  he  quickened  together  with  him  " ;  giving 
you,  as  "  risen  with  him,"  a  life  above  the  world  and  its  law 
of  exclusion,  —  a  life  not  "subject  to  ordinances,"  but  of 
secret  love  and  heavenly  faith,  "  hid  with  Christ  in  God  " ; 
"  blotting  out  the  handwriting  of  ordinances  that  was  against 
us,  which  was  contrary  to  us,  and  taking  it  out  of  the  way, 
nailing  it  to  his  cross."  God  had  never  intended  to  per- 
petuate the  division  between  Israel  and  the  world,  receiving 
the  one  as  the  sons,  and  shutting  out  the  other  as  the  slaves 
of  his  household.  If  there  had  been  an  appearance  of  such 
partiality,  he  had  always  designed  to  set  these  bondmen  free, 
and  to  make  them  "  heirs  of  God  through  Christ " ;  "in 
whom  they  had  redemption  through  his  blood"  from  their 


116  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

servile  state,  the  forgiveness  of  disqualifying  sins,  according 
to  the  riches  of  his  grace.  Though  the  Hebrews  boasted 
that  "  theirs  was  the  adoption,"  and  till  Messiah's  death 
had  boasted  truly ;  yet  in  that  event  God,  "  before  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world,"  had  "  blessed  us  "  ( Gentiles)  "  with  all 
spiritual  blessings  in  heavenly  places  "  ;  "  having  predesti- 
nated us  unto  the  adoption  of  children,  by  Jesus  Christ,  ac- 
cording "  (not  indeed  to  any  right  or  promise,  but)  "  to  the 
good  pleasure  of  his  will,"  "  and  when  we  were  enemies, 
having  reconciled  us,  by  the  death  of  his  Son  "  ;  "  that  in  the 
fulness  of  times  he  might  gather  together  in  one  all  things  in 
Christ" ;  "by  whom  we  "  (Gentiles)  "  have  now  received  this 
atonement "  (reconciliation)  ;  that  he  might  have  no  partial 
empire,  but  that  "  in  him  might  all  fulness  dwell."  "  Where- 
fore," says  their  Apostle,  "  remember  that  ye,  Gentiles  in  the 
flesh,  were  in  time  past  without  Messiah,  being  aliens  from 
the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  and  strangers  from  the  covenant 
of  promise,  having  no  hope,  and  without  God  in  the  world  ; 
but  now  in  Christ  Jesus,  ye,  who  sometime  were  afar  off,  are 
made  nigh  by  the  blood  of  Christ.  For  he  is  our  peace,  who 
hath  made  both  one,  and  hath  broken  down  the  middle  wall 
of  partition  between  us "  (not  between  God  and  man,  but 
between  Jew  and  Gentile)  ;  "  having  abolished  in  his  flesh 
the  enmity,  even  the  law  of  commandments,  contained  in  or- 
dinances ;  for  to  make  in  himself,  of  twain,  one  new  man,  so 
making  peace  ;  and  that  he  might  reconcile  both  unto  God,  in 
one  body,  by  the  cross,  having  slain  the  enmity  thereby ;  and 
came  and  preached  peace  to  you  who  were  afar  off,  as  well 
as  to  them  that  were  nigh.  For  through  him  we  both  have 
an  access  by  one  spirit  unto  the  Father." 

The  way,  then,  is  clear  and  intelligible,  in  which  the  death 
and  ascension  of  the  Messiah  rendered  him  universal,  by 
giving  spirituality  to  his  rule ;  and,  on  the  simple  condition  of 
faith,  added  the  uncovenanted  nations  to  his  dominion,  so  far 
as  they  were  willing  to  receive  him.  This  idea,  and  this  only, 
will  be  found  in  almost  every  passage  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment (excepting  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews)  usually  adduced 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  117 

to  prove  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  Some  of  the 
strongest  of  these  I  have  already  quoted ;  and  my  readers 
must  judge  whether  they  have  received  a  satisfactory  mean- 
in"1.  There  are  others,  in  which  the  Gentiles  are  not  so  dis- 

O  ' 

tinctly  stated  to  be  the  sole  objects  of  the  redemption  of  the 
cross  ;  but  with  scarcely  an  exception,  so  far  as  I  can  discover, 
this  limitation  is  implied,  and  either  creeps  out  through  some 
adjacent  expression  in  the  context,  or  betrays  itself,  when  we 
recur  to  the  general  course  of  the  Apostle's  argument,  or  to 
the  character  and  circumstances  of  his  correspondents.  Thus 
Paul  says,  that  Christ  "  gave  himself  a  ransom  for  all,  to  be 
testified  in  due  time "  ;  the  next  verse  shows  what  is  in  his 
mind,  when  he  adds,  "  whereunto  I  am  ordained  a  preacher, 
and  an  Apostle,  a  teacher  of  THE  GENTILES  in  faith  and 
verity  "  ;  and  the  whole  sentiment  of  the  context  is  the  Uni- 
versality of  the  Gospel,  and  the  duty  of  praying  for  Gentile 
kings  and  people,  as  not  abandoned  to  a  foreign  God  and 
another  Mediator  ;  for  since  Messiah's  death,  to  us  all  "  there 
is  but  One  God,  and  One  Mediator  between  God  and  men, 
the  man  Christ  Jesus  "  :  wherefore  the  Apostle  wills,  that  for 
all  "  men  pray  everywhere,  lifting  up  holy  hands,  without 
wrath  and  doubting,"  —  without  wrath  at  their  admission,  or 
doubt  of  their  adoption.  And  wherever  emphasis  is  laid  on 
the  vast  number  benefited  by  the  cross,  a  contrast  is  implied 
with  the  few  (only  the  Jews)  who  could  have  been  his  sub- 
jects had  he  not  died  :  and  when  it  is  said,  "  he  gave  his  life 
a  ransom  for  many  "  ;  his  blood  was  "  shed  for  many,  for  the 
remission  of  sins  " ;  "  thou  wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed 
us  by  thy  blood,  out  of  every  kindred,  and  tongue,  and  people, 
and  nation,  and  hast  made  us  unto  our  God  kings  and 
priests,  and  we  shall  reign  on  the  earth " ;  "  behold  the 
Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world  "  ;  *  — 

*  John  i.  29.  For  an  example  of  the  use  of  the  word  "  world"  to  denote 
the  Gentiles,  see  Rom.  xi.  12  -  t5;  where  St.  Paul,  speaking  of  the  rejection 
of  the  Messiah  by  the  Jews,  declares  that  it  is  only  temporary ;  and  as  it  has 
given  occasion  for  the  adoption  of  the  Gentiles,  so  will  this  lead,  by  ultimate 
reaction,  to  the  readmission  of  Israel ;  a  consummation  in  which  the  Gentiles 


118  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

by  all  these  expressions  is  still  denoted  the  efficacy  of  Christ's 
death  in  removing  the  Gentile  disqualification,  and  making 
his  dispensation  spiritual  as  his  celestial  existence,  and  uni- 
versal as  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  Does  Paul  exhort  certain 
of  his  disciples  "to  feed  the  church  of  the  Lord,  which  he 
hath  purchased  with  his  own  blood  "  ?  *  We  find  that  he  is 
speaking  of  the  Gentile  church  of  Ephesus,  whose  elders  he 
is  instructing  in  the  management  of  their  charge,  and  to 
which  he  afterwards  wrote  the  well-known  Epistle,  on  their 
Gentile  freedom  and  adoption  obtained  by  the  Messiah's 
death.  When  Peter  says,  "Ye  know  that  ye  were  not  re- 
deemed with  corruptible  things,  as  silver  and  gold,  from  your 
vain  conversation,  received  by  tradition  from  your  fathers ; 
but  with  the  precious  blood  of  Christ,  as  of  a  lamb  without 
blemish  and  without  spot,"  —  we  must  inquire  to  whom  he  is 
addressing  these  words.  If  it  be  to  the  Jews,  the  interpre- 
tation which  X  have  hitherto  given  of  such  language  will  not 
apply,  and  we  must  seek  an  explanation  altogether  different. 
But  the  whole  manner  of  this  Epistle,  the  complexion  of  its 
phraseology  throughout,  convinces  me  that  it  was  addressed 
especially  to  the  Gentile  converts  of  Asia  Minor ;  and  that 
the  redemption  of  which  it  speaks  is  no  other  than  that 
which  is  the  frequent  theme  of  their  own  Apostle. 

In  the  passage  just  quoted,  the  form  of  expression  itself 
suggests  the  idea,  that  Peter  is  addressing  a  class  which  did 
not  include  himself :  "  YE  were  not  redeemed,"  &c. ;  farther 
on,  in  the  same  Epistle,  the  same  sentiment  occurs,  however, 

should  rejoice  without  boasting  or  high-mindedness.  "  If,"  he  says,  "  the  fall 
of  them  (the  Israelites)  be  the  riches  of  the  world  (the  Gentiles),  and  the 
diminishing  of  them  the  riches  of  the  Gentiles,  how  much  more  their  fulness! 
For  I  speak  to  you  Gentiles,  inasmuch  as  I  am  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles, 
I  magnify  my  office ;  if,  by  any  means,  I  may  provoke  to  emulation  them 
which  are  my  flesh  (the  Jews),  and  save  some  of  them;  for  if  the  casting 
away  of  them  be  the  reconciling  of  the  world,  what  shall  the  receiving  of 
them  be  but  life  from  the  dead?  " 

*  Acts  xx.  28.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  that  the  reading  of  our 
common  version,  "  church  of  God,"  wants  the  support  of  the  best  authorities; 
and  that,  with  the  general  consent  of  the  most  competent  critics,  Griesbacb, 
reads  "  church  of  the  Lord," 


SCHEME 'OF   VICARIOUS   REDEMPTION.  119 

without  any  such  visible  restriction.  Exhorting  to  patient 
suffering  for  conscience'  sake,  he  appeals  to  the  example  o/ 
Christ ;  "  who,  when  he  suffered,  threatened  not,  but  com' 
mitted  himself  to  Him  that  judgeth  righteously ;  who,  his  own 
self,  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree,  that  we, 
being  dead  to  sins,  should  live  unto  righteousness " :  yet, 
with  instant  change  in  the  expression,  revealing  his  corre- 
spondents to  us,  the  Apostle  adds,  "  by  whose  stripes  YE 
were  healed.  For  ye  were  as  sheep  going  astray ;  but  are 
now  returned  unto  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  your  souls." 
With  the  instinct  of  a  gentle  and  generous  heart,  the  writer, 
treating  in  plain  terms  of  the  former  sins  of  those  whom  he 
addresses,  puts  himself  in  with  them ;  and  avoids  every  ap- 
pearance of  that  spiritual  pride  by  which  the  Jew  constantly 
rendered  himself  offensive  to  the  Gentile. 

Again,  in  this  letter,  he  recommends  the  duty  of  patient 
endurance,  by  appeal  to  the  same  consideration  of  Christ's 
disinterested  self-sacrifice.  "  It  is  better,  if  the  will  of  God 
be  so,  that  ye  suffer  for  well-doing  than  for  evil-doing:  for 
Christ  also  hath  once  suffered  for  sins,  the  just  for  the  unjust, 
that  he  might  bring  us  to  God."  And  who  are  these  "  un- 
just" that  are  thus  brought  to  God?  The  Apostle  instantly 
explains,  by  describing  how  the  "  Jews  by  nature  "  lost  pos- 
session of  Messiah  by  the  death  of  his  person,  and  "  sinners 
of  the  Gentiles  "  gained  him  by  the  resurrection  of  his  im- 
mortal nature ;  "  being  put  to  death  in  flesh,  but  quickened 
in  spirit;  and  thereby  he  went  and  preached  unto  the  spirits  in 
prison,  who  formerly  were  without  faith"  This  is  clearly  a 
description  of  the  heathen  world,  ere  it  was  brought  into 
relation  to  the  Messianic  promises.  Still  further  confirmation, 
however,  follows.  The  Apostle  adds  :  "  Forasmuch,  then,  as 
Christ  hath  suffered  for  us  in  the  flesh,  arm  yourselves  like- 
wise with  the  same  mind ;  for  the  time  past  of  our  life  may 
suffice  us  to  have  wrought  the  will  of  the  Gentiles  ;  when  we 
walked  in  lasciviousness,  lusts,  excess  of  wine,  revellings, 
banquetings,  and  abominable  idolatries"  If  we  cannot  admit 
this  to  be  a  just  description  of  the  holy  Apostle's  former  life, 


120  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

we  must  perceive  that,  writing  to  Pagans  of  whom  it  was  all 
true,  he  beautifully  withholds  from  his  language  every  trace 
of  invidious  distinction,  puts  himself  for  the  moment  into  the 
same  class,  and  seems  to  take  his  share  of  the  distressing 
recollection. 

The  habitual  delicacy  with  which  Paul,  likewise,  classed 
himself  with  every  order  of  persons  in  turn,  to  whom  he  had 
anything  painful  to  say,  is  known  to  every  intelligent  reader 
of  his  Epistles.  Hence,  in  his  writings  too,  we  have  often 
to  consider  with  whom  it  is  that  he  is  holding  his  dialogue,  and 
to  make  our  interpretation  dependent  on  the  answer.  When, 
for  example,  he  says,  that  Jesus  "was  delivered  for  our 
nffences.  and  was  raised  again  for  our  justification " ;  I  ask, 
"  For  whose  ?  —  was  it  for  everybody's  ?  —  or  for  the  Jews', 
since  Paul  was  a  Hebrew  ? "  On  looking  closely  into  the 
argument,  I  find  it  beyond  doubt  that  neither  of  these  answers 
is  correct ;  and  that  the  Apostle,  in  conformity  with  his  fre- 
quent practice,  is  certainly  identifying  himself,  Israelite  though 
he  was,  with  the  Gentiles,  to  whom,  at  that  moment,  his  rea- 
soning applies  itself.  The  neighboring  verses  have  expres- 
sions which  clearly  enough  declare  this :  "  when  we  were  yet 
without  strength"  and  "  while  we  were  yet  sinners"  Christ  died 
for  us.  It  is  to  the  Gentile  church  at  Corinth,  and  while 
expatiating  on  their  privileges  and  relations  as  such,  that 
Paul  speaks  of  the  disqualifications  and  legal  unholiness  of 
the  heathen,  as  vanishing  in  the  death  of  the  Messiah  ;  as  the 
recovered  leper's  uncleanness  was  removed,  and  his  banish- 
ment reversed,  and  his  exclusion  from  the  temple  ended, 
when  the  lamb  without  blemish,  which  the  law  prescribed 
as  his  sin-offering,  bled  beneath  the  knife,  so  did  God  provide 
in  Jesus  a  lamb  without  blemish  for  the  exiled  and  unsancti- 
fied  Gentiles,  to  bring  them  from  their  far  dwelling  in  the 
leprous  haunts  of  this  world's  wilderness,  and  admit  them  to 
the  sanctuary  of  spiritual  health  and  worship :  "  He  hath 
made  him  to  be  a  sin-offering  for  us  (Gentiles),  who  knew  no 
sin ;  that  we  might  be  made  the  justified  of  God  in  him  "  ; 
entering,  under  the  Messiah,  the  community  of  saints.  That, 


SCHEME    OF   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  121 

in  this  sacrificial  allusion,  the  Gentile  adoption  is  still  the 
Apostle's  only  theme,  is  evident  hence :  that  twice  in  this 
very  passage  he  declares  that  he  is  speaking  of  that  peculiar 
"reconciliation,"  the, word  and  ministry  of  which  have  been 
committed  to  himself;  he  is  dwelling  on  the  topic  most  natural 
to  one  who  "  magnified  his  office,"  as  "  Apostle  of  the  Gen- 
tiles." 

To  the  same  parties  was  Paul  writing,  when  he  said, 
"  Christ,  our  passover,  is  sacrificed  for  us."  Frequently  as 
this  sentence  is  cited  in  evidence  of  the  doctrine  of  Atone- 
ment, there  is  hardly  a  verse  in  Scripture  more  utterly  inap- 
plicable ;  nor,  if  the  doctrine  were  true,  could  anything  be 
more  inept  than  an  allusion  to  it  in  this  place.  I  do  not 
dwell  on  the  fact  that  the  paschal  lamb  was  neither  sin-offer- 
ing nor  proper  sacrifice  at  all:  for  the  elucidation  of  the 
death  of  Jesus  by  sacrificial  analogies  is  as  easy  and  wel- 
come as  any  other  mode  of  representing  it.  But  I  turn  to 
the  whole  context,  and  seek  for  its  leading  idea,  before  multi- 
plying inferences  from  a  subordinate  illustration.  I  find  the 
author  treating,  not  of  the  deliverance  of  believers  from  curse 
or  exclusion,  but  of  their  duty  to  keep  the  churches  cleansed, 
by  the  expulsion  of  notoriously  profligate  members.  Such 
persons  they  are  to  cast  from  them,  as  the  Jews,  at  the  pass- 
over,  swept  from  their  houses  all  the  leaven  they  contained  ; 
and  as  for  eight  days,  at  that  season,  only  pure  unleavened 
bread  was  allowed  for  use,  so  the  Church  must  keep  the 
Gospel  festival  free  from  the  ferment  of  malice  and  wicked- 
ness, and  tasting  nothing  but  sincerity  and  truth.  This  com- 
parison is  the  primary  sentiment  of  the  whole  passage  ;  under 
cover  of  which  the  Apostle  is  urging  the  Corinthians  to  expel 
a  certain  licentious  offender :  and  only  because  the  feast  of 
unleavened  bread,  on  which  his  fancy  has  alighted,  set  in  with 
the  day  of  passover,  does  he  allude  to  this  in  completion  of 
the  figure.  As  his  correspondents  were  Gentiles,  their  Chris- 
tianity commenced  with  the  death  of  Christ ;  with  him,  as  an 
immortal,  their  spiritual  relations  commenced  ;  when  he  rose, 
they  rose  with  him,  as  by  a  divine  attraction,  from  an  earthly 
11 


122  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

to  a  heavenly  state ;  their  old  and  corrupt  man  had  been 
buried  together  with  him,  and,  with  the  human  infirmities  of 
his  person,  left  behind  for  ever  in  his  sepulchre  ;  and  it  be- 
came them  "  to  seek  those  tilings  whioh  are  above,"  and  to 
"  yield  themselves  to  God,  as  those  that  are  alive  from  the 
dead."  This  period  of  the  Lord's  sequestration  in  the  heavens 
Paul  represents  as  a  festival  of  purity  to  the  disciples  on 
earth,  ushered  in  by  the  self-sacrifice  of  Christ.  The  time  is 
come,  he  says  ;  cast  away  the  leaven,  for  the  passover  is  slain, 
blessed  bread  of  heaven  to  them  that  taste  it!  let  nothing 
now  be  seen  in  all  the  household  of  the  Church,  but  the  un- 
leavened cake  of  simplicity  and  love. 

Paul  again  appears  as  the  advocate  of  the  Gentiles,  when 
he  protests  that  now  between  them  and  the  Jews  "  there  is 
no  difference,  since  all  have  sinned  and  come  short  of  the 
glory  of  God " ;  that  the  Hebrew  has  lost  all  claim  to  the 
Messianic  adoption,  and  can  have  no  hope  but  in  that  free 
grace  of  God,  which  has  a  sovereign  right  to  embrace  the 
heathen  too ;  and  which,  in  fact,  has  compassed  the  Gentiles 
within  its  redemption,  by  causing  Jesus  the  Messiah  to  die ; 
"  by  whose  blood  God  hath  set  forth  a  propitiation,  through 
faith ;  to  evince  his  justice,  while  overlooking,  with  the  for- 
bearance of  God,  transgressions  past ;  —  to  evince  his  justice 
in  the  arrangements  of  the  present  crisis ;  which  preserve  his 
justice  (to  the  Israelite),  yet  justify  on  mere  disciple«hip  to 
Jesus."  The  great  question  which  the  Apostle  discusses 
throughout  this  Epistle  is  this :  "  On  what  terms  is  a  man 
now  admitted  as  a  subject  to  the  Messiah,  so  as  to  be  ac- 
knowledged by  him,  when  he  comes  to  erect  his  kingdom  ?  " 
"  He  must  be  one  of  the  circumcised,  to  whom  alone  the  holy 
law  and  promises  are  given,"  says  the  Jew.  "  That  is  well," 
replies  Paul;  "only  the  promises,  you  remember,  are  con- 
ditional on  obedience ;  and  he  who  claims  by  the  law  must 
stand  the  judgment  of  the  law.  Can  your  nation  abide  this 
test,  and  will  you  stake  your  hopes  upon  the  issue  ?  Or  is 
there  on  record  against  you  a  violation  of  every  condition  of 
your  boasted  covenant,  —  wholesale  and  national  transgression, 


SCHEME    OP   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  123 

which  your  favorite  code  itself  menaces  with  'cutting  off'? 
Have  you  even  rejected  and  crucified  the  very  Messiah,  who 
was  tendered  to  you  in  due  fulfilment  of  the  promises  ?  Take 
your  trial  by  the  principles  of  your  law,  and  you  must  be 
cast  off,  and  perish,  as  certainly  as  the  heathen  whom  you 
despise ;  and  whose  rebellion  against  the  natural  law,  gross 
as  it  is,  does  not  surpass  your  own  offences  against  the  tables 
of  Moses.  You  must  abandon  the  claim  of  right,  the  high 
talk  of  God's  justice  and  plighted  faith;  —  which  are  alike 
ill  suited  to  you  both.  The  rules  of  law  are  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, and  would  admit  nobody;  and  we  must  ascend  again 
to  the  sovereign  will  and  free  mercy  of  Hun  who  is  the  source 
of  law;  and  who,  to  bestow  a  blessing  which  its  resources 
cannot  confer,  may  devise  new  methods  of  beneficence.  God 
has  violated  no  pledge.  Messiah  came  to  Israel,  and  never 
went  beyond  its  bounds;  the  uncircumcised  had  no  part  in 
him ;  and  every  Hebrew  who  desired  it  was  received  as  his 
subject.  But  when  the  people  would  not  have  him,  and 
threw  away  their  ancient  title,  was  God  either  to  abandon  his 
vicegerent,  or  to  force  him  on  the  unwilling  ?  No :  rather 
did  it  befit  him  to  say :  '  If  they  will  reject  and  crucify  my 
servant,  —  why,  let  him  die,  and  then  he  is  Israelite  no  more  ; 
I  will  raise  him,  and  take  him  apart  in  his  immortality  ;  where 
his  blood  of  David  is  lost ;  and  the  holiness  of  his  humanity 
is  glorified ;  and  all  shall  be  his,  who  will  believe,  and  love 
him,  as  he  there  exists,  spiritually  and  truly.' "  Thus,  ac- 
cording to  Paul,  does  God  provide  a  new  method  of  adoption 
or  justification,  without  violating  any  promises  of  the  old. 
Thus  he  makes  Faith  in  Jesus  —  a  moral  act,  instead  of  a 
genealogical  accident  —  the  single  condition  of  reception  into 
the  Divine  kingdom  upon  earth.  Thus,  after  the  passage  of 
Christ  from  this  world  to  another,  Jew  and  Gentile  are  on  an 
equality  in  relation  to  the  Messiah  ;  the  one  gaining  nothing 
by  his  past  privileges ;  the  other,  not  visited  with  exclusion 
for  past  idolatry  and  sins,  but  assured,  in  Messiah's  death, 
that  these  are  to  be  overlooked,  and  treated  as  if  cleansed 
away.  He  finds  himself  invited  into  the  very  penetralia  of 


124  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

that  sanctuary  of  pure  faith  and  hope,  from  which  before  he 
had  been  repelled  as  an  unclean  thing ;  as  if  its  ark  of  mercy- 
had  been  purified  for  ever  from  his  unworthy  touch,  or  lie 
himself  had  been  sprinkled  by  some  sudden  consecration. 
And  all  this  was  the  inevitable  and  instant  effect  of  that  death 
on  Calvary,  which  took  Messiah  from  the  Jews  and  gave  him 
to  the  world. 

With  emphasis,  not  less  earnest  than  that  of  Paul,  does 
the  Apostle  John  repudiate  the  notion  of  any  claim  on  the 
Divine  admission  by  law  or  righteousness;  and  insist  on 
humble  and  unqualified  acceptance  of  God's  free  grace  and 
remission  for  the  past,  as  the  sole  avenue  of  entrance  to  the 
kingdom  This  avenue  was  open,  however,  to  all  "  who 
confessed  that  Jesus  the  Messiah  had  come  in  the  flesh  "  ;  in 
other  words,  that,  during  his  mortal  life,  Jesus  had  been 
indicated  as  this  future  Prince  ;  and  that  his  ministry  was  the 
Messiah's  preliminary  visit  to  that  earth  on  which  shortly  he 
would  reappear  to  reign.  The  great  object  of  that  visit  was 
to  prepare  the  world  for  his  real  coming ;  for  as  yet  it  was 
very  unfit  for  so  great  a  crisis  ;  and  especially  to  open,  by  his 
death,  a  way  of  admission  for  the  Gentiles,  and  frame,  on 
their  behalf,  an  act  of  oblivion  for  the  past.  "  If,"  says  the 
Apostle  to  them,  "  we  walk  in  the  light,  as  he  is  in  the  light " 
(of  love  and  heaven),  "we  have  fellowship  one  with  another, 
and  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  his  Son  cleanseth  us  from  all 
sin  " :  the  Israelite  will  embrace  the  Gentiles  in  fraternal  re- 
lations, knowing  that  the  cross  has  removed  their  past  un- 
holiness.  Nor  let  the  Hebrew  rely  on  anything  now  but  the 
Divine  forbearance  ;  to  appeal  to  rights  will  serve  no  longer : 
"  If  we  say  we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves,  and  the 
truth  is  not  in  us."  Nor  let  any  one  despair  of  a  reception, 
or  even  a  restoration,  because  he  has  been  an  idolater  and 
sinner:  "Jesus  Christ  the  righteous"  is  "an  advocate  with 
the  Father"  for  admitting  all  who  are  willing  to  be  his  ;  "  and 
he  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  ;  and  not  for  ours  only  (not 
merely  for  our  small  portion  of  Genliles,  already  converted)  ; 
but  also  for  the  whole  world,"  if  they  will  but  accept  him. 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  125 

He  died  to  become  universal ;  to  make  all  his  own  ;  to  spread 
an  oblivion,  wide  as  the  earth,  over  all  that  had  embarrassed 
the  relations  to  the  Messiah,  and  made  men  aliens,  instead  of 
Sons  of  God.  Yet  did  no  spontaneous  movement  of  their 
good  affections  solicit  this  change.  It  was  "  not  that  we 
(Gentiles)  loved  God ;  but  that  he  loved  us,  and  sent  his 
Son,  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  "  ;  "  he  sent  his  only-begot- 
ten Son  into  the  world,  that  we  might  live  through  him." 
That  this  Epistle  was  addressed  to  Gentiles,  and  is  therefore 
occupied  with  the  same  leading  idea  respecting  the  cross 
which  pervades  the  writings  of  Paul,  is  rendered  probable  by 
its  concluding  words,  which  could  hardly  be  appropriate  to 
Jews  :  "  Keep  yourselves  from  idols."  How  little  the  Apostle 
associated  any  vicarious  idea  even  with  a  form  of  phrase 
most  constantly  employed  by  modern  theology  to  express  it, 
is  evident  from  the  parallel  which  he  draws,  in  the  following 
words,  between  the  death  of  our  Lord  and  that  of  the  Chris- 
tian martyrs :  "  Hereby  perceive  we  love,  because  Christ 
laid  down  his  life  for  us ;  and  we  ought  to  lay  down  our 
lives  for  the  brethren" 

Are,  then,  the  Gentiles  alone  beneficially  affected  by  the 
death  of  Christ  ?  and  is  no  wider  efficacy  ever  assigned  to  it 
in  Scripture  ?  The  great  number  of  passages  to  which  I  have 
already  applied  this  single  interpretation  will  show  that  I 
consider  it  as  comprising  the  great  leading  idea  of  the  Apos- 
tolic theology  on  this  subject ;  nor  do  I  think  that  there  is 
(out  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which  I  shall  soon  no- 
tice) a  single  doctrinal  allusion  to  the  cross,  from  which  this 
conception  is  wholly  absent.  At  the  same  time,  I  am  not 
prepared  to  maintain,  that  this  is  the  only  view  of  the  cruci- 
fixion and  resurrection  ever  present  to  the  mind  of  the 
Apostles.  Jews  themselves,  they  naturally  inquired,  how 
Israel,  in  particular,  stood  affected  by  the  unanticipated 
death  of  its  Messiah ;  in  what  way  its  relations  were  changed, 
when  the  offered  Prince  became  the  executed  victim ;  and 
how  far  matters  would  have  been  different,  if,  as  had  been 
expected,  the  Anointed  had  assumed  his  rights  and  taken 
11* 


126  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

his  power  at  once ;  and,  instead  of  making  his  first  advent  a 
mere  preliminary  and  warning  visit  "  in  the  flesh,"  had  set 
up  the  kingdom  forthwith,  and  gathered  with  him  his  few 
followers  to  "  reign  on  the  earth."  Had  this  —  instead  of 
submission  to  death,  removal,  and  delay  —  been  his  adopted 
course,  what  would  have  become  of  his  own  nation,  who  had 
rejected  him,  —  who  must  have  been  tried  by  that  law  which 
was  their  boast,  and  under  which  he  came,  —  who  had  long 
been  notorious  offenders  against  its  conditions,  and  now 
brought  down  its  final  curse  by  despising  the  claims  of  the 
accredited  Messiah  ?  They  must  have  been  utterly  "  cut 
off,"  and  cast  out  among  the  "  aliens  from  the  commonwealth 
of  Israel,"  "  without  Messiah,"  "  without  hope,"  "  without 
God  " ;  for  while  "  circumcision  profiteth,  if  thou  keep  the 
law  ;  yet  if  thou  be  a  breaker  of  the  law,  thy  circumcision  is 
made  uncircumcision."  Had  he  come  then  "  to  be  glorified 
in  his  saints,  and  to  be  admired  in  all  them  that  believe,"  — 
had  he  then  been  "  revealed  with  his  mighty  angels  "  (whom 
he  might  have  summoned  by  "legions"),  —  it  must  have 
been  "  in  flaming  fire,  taking  vengeance  on  them  that  knew 
not  God,  nor  obeyed  the  glad  tidings  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ " ;  to  "  punish  with  everlasting  destruction  from  the 
presence  of  the  Lord  and  the  glory  of  his  power."  The  sins 
and  prospects  of  Israel  being  thus  terrible,  and  its  rejection 
imminent  (for  Messiah  was  already  in  the  midst  of  them), 
he  withheld  his  hand ;  refused  to  precipitate  their  just  fate ; 
and  said,  "  Let  us  give  them  time,  and  wait ;  I  will  go  apart 
into  the  heavens,  and  peradventure  they  will  repent ;  only 
they  must  receive  me  then  spiritually,  and  by  hearty  faith, 
not  by  carnal  right,  admitting  thus  the  willing  Gentile  with 
themselves."  And  so  he  prepared  to  die  and  retire ;  he  did 
not  permit  them  to  be  cut  off,  but  was  cut  off  himself  in- 
stead ;  he  restrained  the  curse  of  their  own  law  from  falling 
on  them,  and  rather  perished  himself  by  a  foul  and  accursed 
lot,  which  that  same  law  pronounces  to  be  the  vilest  and 
most  polluted  of  deaths.  Thus  says  St.  Paul  to  the  Jews : 
"  He  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  being  made 


SCHEME    OP   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  127 

a  curse  for  us ;  for  it  is  written,  '  Cursed  is  every  one  that 
hangeth  on  a  tree.' "  *  In  tliis  way,  but  for  the  death  of  the 
Messiah,  Israel  too  must  have  been  lost ;  and  by  that  event 
they  received  time  for  repentance,  and  a  way  for  remission 
of  sins ;  found  a  means  of  reconciliation  still ;  saw  their 
providence,  which  had  been  lowering  for  judgment,  opening 
over  them  in  propitiation  once  more  ;  the  just  had  died  for 
the  unjust,  to  bring  them  to  God.  What  was  this  delay,  — 
this  suspension  of  judgment,  —  this  opportunity  of  return 
and  faith,  —  but  an  instance  of  "  the  long-suffering  of  God," 
with  which  "  he  endures  the  vessels  of  wrath  (Jews)  fitted  to 
destruction,  and  makes  known  the  riches  of  his  glory  on 
the  vessels  of  mercy,  which  he  had  afore  prepared  unto 
glory  "  ?  If  Christ  had  not  withdrawn  awhile,  if  his  power 
had  been  taken  up  at  once,  and  wielded  in  stern  and  legal  jus- 
tice, a  deluge  of  judgment  must  have  overwhelmed  the  earth, 
and  swept  away  both  Jew  and  Gentile,  leaving  but  a  remnant 
safe.  But  in  mercy  was  the  mortal  life  of  Jesus  turned  into 
a  preluding  message  of  notice  and  warning,  like  the  tidings 
which  Noah  received  of  the  flood ;  and  as  the  growing  frame 
of  the  ark  gave  signal  to  the  world  of  the  coming  calamity, 
afforded  an  interval  for  repentance,  and  made  the  patriarch, 
as  he  built,  a  constant  "  preacher  of  righteousness  " ;  so  the 
increasing  body  of  the  Church,  since  the  warning  retreat  of 
Christ  to  heaven,  proclaims  the  approaching  "day  of  the 
Lord,"  admonishes  that  "  all  should  come  to  repentance,"  and 
fly  betimes  to  that  faith  and  baptism  which  Messiah's  death 
and  resurrection  have  left  as  an  ark  of  safety.  "  Once,  in 
the  days  of  Noah,  the  long-suffering  of  God  waited  while  the 
ark  was  preparing,  wherein  few,  that  is,  eight  souls,  were 
saved  by  water :  a  representation,  this,  of  the  way  in  which 
baptism  (not,  of  course,  carnal  washing,  but  the  engagement 
of  a  good  conscience  with  God)  saves  us  now,  by  the  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  Christ ;  who  is  gone  into  heaven,  and  is  on 

*  Gal.  iii.  13.  Even  here  the  Apostle  cannot  refrain  from  adverting  to  his 
Gentile  interpretation  of  the  cross ;  for  he  adds,  — "  that  the  blessing  of 
Abraham  might  come  on  the  Gentiles,  through  Jesus  Christ." 


128  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

the  right  hand  of  God ;  angels,  and  authorities,  and  powers, 
being  made  subject  to  him."  Yet  "the  time  is  short,"  and 
must  be  "redeemed";  "it  is  the  last  hour";  "the  Lord," 
"  the  coming  of  the  Lord,"  "  the  end  of  all  things,"  are  "  at 
hand." 

I  have  described  one  aspect,  which  the  death  of  the  Mes- 
siah presented  to  the  Jews ;  and,  in  this,  we  have  found 
another  primary  conception,  explanatory  of  the  Scriptural 
language  respecting  the  cross.  Of  the  two  relations  in  which 
this  event  appeared  (the  Gentile  and  the  Israeliti.sh),  I  believe 
the  former  to  be  by  far  the  most  familiar  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment authors,  and  to  furnish  the  true  interpretation  of  almost 
all  their  phraseology  on  the  subject.  But,  as  my  readers  may 
have  noticed,  many  passages  receive  illustration  by  reference 
to  either  notion  ;  and  some  may  have  a  meaning  compounded 
of  both.  I  must  not  pause  to  make  any  minute  adjustment 
of  these  claims,  on  the  part  of  the  two  interpreting  ideas :  it 
is  enough  that,  either  separately  or  in  union,  they  have  now 
been  taken  round  the  whole  circle  of  apostolic  language  re- 
specting the  cross,  and  detected  in  every  difficult  passage  the 
presence  of  sense  and  truth,  and  the  absence  of  all  hint  of 
vicarious  atonement. 

It  was  on  the  unbelieving  portion  of  the  Jewish  people  that 
the  death  of  their  Messiah  conferred  the  national  blessings 
and  opportunities  to  which  I  have  adverted.  But  to  the  con- 
verts who  had  been  received  by  him  during  his  mortal  life, 
and  who  would  have  been  heirs  of  his  glory,  had  he  assumed 
it  at  once,  it  was  less  easy  to  point  out  any  personal  benefits 
from  the  cross.  That  the  Christ  had  retired  from  this  world 
was  but  a  disappointing  postponement  of  their  hopes ;  that 
he  had  perished  as  a  felon  was  shocking  to  their  pride,  and 
turned  their  ancient  boast  into  a  present  scorn ;  that  he  had 
become  spiritual  and  immortal  made  him  no  longer  theirs 
"  as  concerning  the  flesh,"  and,  by  admitting  Gentiles  with 
themselves,  set  aside  their  favorite  law.  So  offensive  to 
them  was  this  unexpected  slight  on  the  institutions  of  Moses, 
immemorially  reverenced  as  the  ordinances  of  God,  that  it 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  129 

became  important  to  give  some  turn  to  the  death  of  Jesus, 
by  which  that  event  might  be  harmonized  with  the  national 
system,  and  be  shown  to  effect  the  abrogation  of  the  law, 
on  principles  strictly  legal.  This  was  the  object  of  the  writer 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  ;  who  thus  gives  us  a  third  idea 
of  the  relations  of  the  cross,  —  bearing,  indeed,  an  essential 
resemblance  to  St.  Paul's  Gentile  view,  but  illustrated  in  a 
manner  altogether  different.  No  trace  is  to  be  observed  here 
of  Paul's  noble  glorying  in  the  cross  :  so  studiously  is  every 
allusion  to  the  crucifixion  avoided,  till  all  the  argumentative 
part  of  the  Epistle  has  been  completed,  that  a  reader  finds  the 
conclusion  already  in  sight,  without  having  gained  any  notion 
of  the  mode  of  the  Lord's  death,  whether  even  it  was  natural 
or  violent,  —  a  literal  human  sacrifice,  or  a  voluntary  self- 
immolation.  Its  ignominy  and  its  agonies  are  wholly  un- 
mentioned;  and  his  mortal  infirmities  and  sufferings  are 
explained,  not  as  the  spontaneous  adoptions  of  previous  com- 
passion in  him,  but  as  God's  fitting  discipline  for  rendering 
him  "a  merciful  and  faithful  high-priest."  They  are  re- 
ferred to  in  the  tone  of  apology,  not  of  pride ;  as  needing 
rather  to  be  reconciled  with  his  office,  than  to  be  boldly 
expounded  as  its  grand  essential.  The  object  of  the  author 
clearly  is,  to  find  a  place  for  the  death  of  Jesus  among  the 
Messianic  functions ;  and  he  persuades  the  Hebrew  Chris- 
tians that  it  is  (not  a  satisfaction  for  moral  guilt,  but)  a  com- 
mutation for  the  Mosaic  Law.  In  order  to  understand  his 
argument,  we  must  advert  for  a  moment  to  the  prejudices 
which  it  was  designed  to  conciliate  and  correct. 

It  is  not  easy  for  us  to  realize  the  feelings  with  which  the 
Israelite,  in  the  yet  palmy  days  of  the  Levitical  worship, 
would  hear  of  an  abrogation  of  the  Law  ;  —  the  anger  and 
contempt  with  which  the  mere  bigot  would  repudiate  the 
suggestion ;  —  the  terror  with  which  the  new  convert  would 
make  trial  of  his  freedom;  —  the  blank  and  infidel  feeling 
with  which  he  would  look  round,  and  find  himself  drifted 
away  from  his  anchorage  of  ceremony  ;  —  the  sinking  heart 
with  which  he  would  hear  the  reproaches  of  his  countrymen 


130  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

against  his  apostasy.  Every  authoritative  ritual  draws  to- 
wards itself  an  attachment  too  strong  for  reason  and  the 
sense  of  right;  and  transfers  the  feeling  of  obligation  from 
realities  to  symbols.  Among  the  Hebrews  this  effect  was 
the  more  marked  and  the  more  pernicious,  because  their 
ceremonies  were  in  many  instances  only  remotely  connected 
with  any  important  truth  or  excellent  end ;  they  were  sepa- 
rated by  several  removes  from  any  spiritual  utility.  Rites 
were  enacted  to  sustain  other  rites ;  institution  lay  beneath 
institution,  through  so  many  successive  steps,  that  the  crown- 
ing principle  at  the  summit  easily  passed  out  of  sight.  To 
keep  alive  the  grand  truth  of  the  Divine  Unity,  there  was  a 
gorgeous  temple  worship ;  to  perform  this  worship  there  was 
a  priesthood ;  to  support  the  priesthood  there  were  (among 
other  sources  of  income)  dues  paid  in  the  form  of  sacrifice ; 
to  provide  against  the  non-payment  of  dues  there  were  penal- 
ties ;  to  prevent  an  injurious  pressure  of  these  penalties,  there 
were  exemptions,  as  in  cases  of  sickness ;  and  to  put  a  check 
on  trivial  claims  of  exemption,  it  must  be  purchased  by  sub- 
mission to  a  fee,  under  name  of  an  atonement.  Wherever 
such  a  system  is  received  as  divine,  and  based  on  the  same 
authority  with  the  great  law  of  duty,  it  will  always,  by  its 
definiteness  and  precision,  attract  attention  from  graver  moral 
obligations.  Its  materiality  renders  it  calculable :  its  account 
with  the  conscience  can  be  exactly  ascertained :  as  it  has  little 
obvious  utility  to  men,  it  appears  the  more  directly  paid  to 
God :  it  is  regarded  as  the  special  means  of  pleasing  him,  of 
placating  his  anger,  and  purchasing  his  promises.  Hence  it 
may  often  happen,  that  the  more  the  offences  against  the 
spirit  of  duty,  the  more  are  rites  multiplied  in  propitiation ; 
and  the  harvest  of  ceremonies  and  that  of  crimes  ripen  to- 
gether. 

At  a  state  not  far  from  this  had  the  Jews  arrived  when 
Christianity  was  preached.  Their  moral  sentiments  were  so 
far  perverted,  that  they  valued  nothing  in  themselves,  in  com- 
parison with  their  legal  exactitude,  and  hated  all  beyond 
themselves  for  their  want  of  this.  They  were  eagerly  ex- 


SCHEME    OF   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  131 

pecting  the  Deliverer's  kingdom,  nursing  up  their  ambition 
for  his  triumphs ;  curling  the  lip,  as  the  lash  of  oppression 
fell  upon  them,  in  suppressed  anticipation  of  vengeance ;  sa- 
tiating a  temper,  at  once  fierce  and  servile,  with  dreams  of 
Messiah's  coming  judgment,  when  the  blood  of  the  patri- 
archs should  be  the  title  of  the  world's  nobles,  and  the  ever- 
lasting reign  should  begin  in  Jerusalem  Why  was  the  hour 
delayed  ?  they  impatiently  asked  themselves.  Was  it  that 
they  had  offended  Jehovah,  and  secretly  sinned  against  some 
requirement  of  his  law  ?  And  then  they  set  themselves  to  a 
renewed  precision,  a  more  slavish  punctiliousness  than  be- 
fore. Ascribing  their  continued  depression  to  their  imper- 
fect legal  obedience,  they  strained  their  ceremonialism  tighter 
than  ever ;  and  hoped  to  be  soon  justified  from  their  past  sins, 
and  ready  for  the  mighty  prince  and  the  latter  days. 

What,  then,  must  have  be^n  the  feeling  of  the  Hebrew, 
when  told  that  all  his  punctualities  had  been  thrown  away,  — 
that,  at  the  advent,  faith  in  Jesus,  not  obedience  to  the  law, 
was  to  be  the  title  to  admission,  —  and  that  the  redeemed 
at  that  day  would  be,  not  the  scrupulous  Pharisee,  whose 
dead  works  would  be  of  no  avail,  but  all  who,  with  the  heart, 
have  worthily  confessed  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  ?  What 
doctrine  could  be  more  unwelcome  to  the  haughty  Israelite  ? 
it  dashed  his  pride  of  ancestry  to  the  ground.  It  brought  to 
the  same  level  with  himself  the  polluted  Gentile,  —  whose 
presence  would  alone  render  all  unclean  in  the  Messiah's 
kingdom.  It  proved  his  past  ritual  anxieties  to  have  been 
all  wasted.  It  cast  aside  for  the  future  the  venerated  law ; 
left  it  in  neglect  to  die  ;  and  made  all  the  apparatus  of  Provi- 
dence for  its  maintenance  end  in  absolutely  nothing.  Was 
then  the  Messiah  to  supersede,  and  not  to  vindicate,  the  law  ? 
How  different  this  from  the  picture  which  prophets  had  drawn 
of  his  golden  age,  when  Jerusalem  was  to  be  the  pride  of 
the  earth,  and  her  temple  the  praise  of  nations,  sought  by 
the  feet  of  countless  pilgrims,  and  decked  with  the  splendor 
of  their  gifts !  How  could  a  true  Hebrew  be  justified  in  a 
life  without  law?  How  think  himself  safe  in  a  profession, 


132  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

which  was  without  temple,  without  priest,  without  altar, 
without  victim? 

Not  unnaturally,  then,  did  the  Hebrews  regard  with  re- 
luctance two  of  the  leading  features  of  Christianity ;  the 
death  of  the  Messiah,  and  the  freedom  from  the  law.  The 
Epistle  addressed  to  them  was  designed  to  soothe  their  un- 
easiness, and  to  show  that,  if  the  Mosaic  institutions  were 
superseded,  it  was  in  conformity  with  principles  and  analogies 
contained  within  themselves.  With  great  address,  the  writer 
links  the  two  difficulties  together,  and  makes  the  one  explain 
the  other.  He  finds  a  ready  means  of  effecting  this,  in  the 
sacrificial  ideas  familiar  to  every  Hebrew  ;  for  by  represent- 
ing the  death  of  Jesus  as  a  commutation  for  legal  observ- 
ances, he  is  only  ascribing  to  it  an  operation  acknowledged  to 
have  place  in  the  death  of  every  lamb  slain  as  a  sin-offering 
at  the  altar.  These  offerings  were  a  distinct  recognition,  on 
the  part  of  the  Levitical  code,  of  a  principle  of  equivalents  for 
its  ordinances ;  a  proof  that,  under  certain  conditions,  they 
might  yield :  nothing  more,  therefore,  was  necessary,  than  to 
show  that  the  death  of  Christ  established  those  conditions. 
And  such  a  method  of  argument  was  attended  by  this  ad- 
vantage, that,  while  the  practical  end  would  be  obtained  of 
terminating  all  ceremonial  observance,  the  law  was  yet  treated 
as  in  theory  perpetual ;  not  as  ignominiously  abrogated,  but 
as  legitimately  commuted.  Just  as  the  Israelite,  in  paying 
his  offering  at  the  altar  to  compensate  for  ritual  omissions, 
recognized  thereby  the  claims  of  the  law,  while  he  obtained 
impunity  for  its  neglect ;  so,  if  Providence  could  be  shown  to 
have  provided  a  legal  substitute  for  the  system,  its  authority 
was  acknowledged  at  the  moment  that  its  abolition  was  se- 
cured. 

Let  us  advert,  then,  to  the  functions  of  the  Mosaic  sin- 
offerings,  to  which  the  writer  has  recourse  to  illustrate  his 
main  position.  They  were  of  the  nature  of  a  mulct  or  ac- 
knowledgment rendered  for  unconscious  or  inevitable  disregard 
of  ceremonial  liabilities,  and  contraction  of  ceremonial  un- 
cleanness.  Such  uncleanness  might  be  incurred  from  various 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  133 

causes ;  and,  while  unremoved  by  the  appointed  methods  of 
purification,  disqualified  from  attendance  at  the  sanctuary, 
and  "  cut  off"  "  the  guilty  "  "  from  among  the  congregation." 
To  touch  a  dead  body,  to  enter  a  tent  where  a  corpse  lay, 
rendered  a  person  "  unclean  for  seven  days " ;  to  come  in 
contact  with  a  forbidden  animal,  a  bone,  a  grave,  to  be  next 
to  any  one  struck  with  sudden  death,  to  be  afflicted  with 
certain  kinds  of  bodily  disease  and  infirmity,  unwittingly  to 
lay  a  finger  on  a  person  unclean,  occasioned  defilement,  and 
necessitated  a  purification  or  an  atonement.  Independently 
of  these  offences,  enforced  upon  the  Israelite  by  the  accidents 
of  life,  it  was  not  easy  for  even  the  most  cautious  worshipper 
to  keep  pace  with  the  complicated  series  of  petty  debts  which 
the  law  of  ordinances  was  always  running  up  against  him. 
If  his  offering  had  an  invisible  blemish  ;  if  he  omitted  a  tithe, 
because  "  he  wist  it  not " ;  or  inadvertently  fell  into  arrear, 
by  a  single  day,  with  respect  to  a  known  liability ;  if  absent 
from  disease,  he  was  compelled  to  let  his  ritual  account  accu- 
mulate ;  "  though  it  be  hidden  from  him,"  he  must  "  be  guilty, 
and  bear  his  iniquity,"  and  bring  his  victim.  On  the  birth 
of  a  child,  the  mother,  after  the  lapse  of  a  prescribed  pe- 
riod, made  her  pilgrimage  to  the  temple,  presented  her  sin- 
offering,  and  "  the  priest  made  atonement  for  her."  The  poor 
leper,  long  banished  from  the  face  of  men,  and  unclean  by 
the  nature  of  his  disease,  became  a  debtor  to  the  sanctuary, 
and  on  return  from  his  tedious  quarantine  brought  his  lamb 
of  atonement,  and  departed  thence,  clear  from  neglected  obli- 
gations to  his  law.  It  was  impossible,  however,  to  provide  by 
specific  enactment  for  every  case  of  ritual  transgression  and 
impurity,  arising  from  inadvertence  or  necessity.  Scarcely 
could  it  be  expected  that  the  courts  of  worship  themselves 
would  escape  defilement,  from  imperfections  in  the  offerings, 
or  unconscious  disqualification  in  people  or  in  priest.  To  clear 
off  the  whole  invisible  residue  of  such  sins,  an  annual  "  day 
of  atonement "  was  appointed ;  the  people  thronged  the  ave- 
nues and  approaches  of  the  tabernacle ;  in  their  presence  a 
kid  was  slain  for  their  own  transgressions,  and  for  the  high- 
10 


134  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

priest  the  more  dignified  expiation  of  a  heifer;  charged  with 
the  blood  of  each  successively,  he  sprinkled  not  only  the 
exterior  altar  open  to  the  sky,  but,  passing  through  the  first 
and  holy  chamber  into  the  Holy  of  Holies  (never  entered 
else),  he  touched,  with  finger  dipped  in  blood,  the  sacred  lid 
(the  Mercy-seat)  and  foreground  of  the  Ark.  At  that  mo- 
ment, while  he  yet  lingers  behind  the  veil,  the  purification  is 
complete ;  on  no  worshipper  of  Israel  does  any  legal  unholi- 
ness  rest ;  and  were  it  possible  for  the  high-priest  to  remain 
in  that  interior  retreat  of  Jehovah,  still  protracting  the  expia- 
tory act,  so  long  would  this  national  purity  continue,  and  the 
debt  of  ordinances  be  effaced  as  it  arose.  But  he  must  re- 
turn ;  the  sanctifying  rite  must  end ;  the  people  be  dismissed ; 
the  priests  resume  the  daily  ministrations ;  the  law  open  its 
stern  account  afresh ;  and  in  the  mixture  of  national  exacti- 
tude and  neglects,  defilements  multiply  again  till  the  recurring 
anniversary  lifts  off  the  burden  once  more.  Every  year, 
then,  the  necessity  comes  round  of  "  making  atonement  for 
the  holy  sanctuary,"  "  for  the  tabernacle,"  "  for  the  altar," 
"  for  the  priests,  and  for  all  the  people  of  the  congregation." 
Yet,  though  requiring  periodical  renewal,  the  rite,  so  far  as  it 
went,  had  an  efficacy  which  no  Hebrew  could  deny  ;  for  cere- 
monial sins,  unconscious  or  inevitable  (to  which  all  atonement 
was  limited  *),  it  was  accepted  as  an  indemnity ;  and  put  it 
beyond  doubt  that  Mosaic  obedience  was  commutable. 

Such  was  the  system  of  ideas,  by  availing  himself  of  which 
the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  would  persuade  his 
correspondents  to  forsake  their  legal  observances.  "  You  can 
look  without  uneasiness,"  he  suggests,  "  on  your  ritual  omis- 

*  In  three  or  four  instances,  it  is  true,  a  sin-offering  is  demanded  from  the 
perpetrator  of  some  act  of  moral  wrong.  But  in  all  these  cases  a  suitable 
punishment  was  ordained  also ;  a  circumstance  inconsistent  with  the  idea, 
that  the  expiation  procured  remission  of  guilt.  The  sacrifice  appended  to 
the  penal  infliction  indicates  the  twofold  character  of  the  act,  —  at  once  a 
ceremonial  defilement  and  a  crime;  and  requiring,  to  remedy  the  one,  an 
atoning  rite,  —  to  chastise  the  other,  a  judicial  penalty.  See  an  excellent 
tract  by  Rev.  Edward  Higginson,  of  Hull,  entitled,  "  The  Sacrifice  of  Christ 
scripturally  and  rationally  interpreted,"  particularly  pp.  30-34. 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  135 

sions,  when  the  blood  of  some  victim  has  been  presented  in- 
stead, and  the  penetralia  of  your  sanctuary  have  been  sprin- 
kled with  the  offering :  well,  on  no  other  terms  would  I  soothe 
your  anxiety ;  precisely  such  equivalent  sacrifice  does  Chris- 
tianity exhibit,  only  of  so  peculiar  a  nature,  that,  for  all  cere- 
monial neglects,  intentional  no  less  than  inadvertent,  you  may 
rely  upon  indemnity."  The  Jews  entertained  a  belief  respect- 
ing their  temple,  which  enabled  the  writer  to  give  a  singular 
force  and  precision  to  his  analogy.  They  conceived  that  the 
tabernacle  of  their  worship  was  but  the  copy  of  a  divine 
structure,  devised  by  God  himself,  made  by  no  created  hand, 
and  preserved  eternally  in  heaven  :  this  was  "  the  true  taber- 
nacle, which  the  Lord  pitched,  and  not  man " ;  which  no 
mortal  had  beheld,  except  Moses  in  the  mount,  that  he  might 
"  make  all  things  according  to  that  pattern " ;  within  whose 
Holy  of  Holies  dwelt  no  emblem  or  emanation  of  God's 
presence,  but  his  own  immediate  Spirit ;  and  the  celestial 
furniture  of  which  required,  in  proportion  to  its  dignity,  the 
purification  of  a  nobler  sacrifice,  and  the  ministrations  of  a 
diviner  priest,  than  befitted  the  "  worldly  sanctuary "  below. 
And  who  then  can  mistake  the  meaning  of  Christ's  departure 
from  this  world,  or  doubt  what  office  he  conducts  above? 
He  is  called  by  his  ascension  to  the  pontificate  of  heaven ; 
consecrated,  "  not  after  the  law  of  any  carnal  commandment, 
but  after  the  power  of  an  endless  life  "  ;  he  drew  aside  the  veil 
of  his  mortality,  and  passed  into  the  inmost  court  of  God :  and 
as  he  must  needs  "  have  somewhat  to  offer,"  he  takes  the  only 
blood  he  had  ever  shed,  —  which  was  his  own,  —  and,  like 
the  High-Priest  before  the  Mercy-seat,  sanctifies  therewith  the 
people  that  stand  without,  "  redeeming  the  transgressions " 
which  "  the  first  covenant "  of  rites  entailed.  And  he  has 
not  returned ;  still  is  he  hid  within  that  holiest  place ;  and 
still  the  multitude  he  serves  turn  thither  a  silent  and  expec- 
tant gaze ;  he  prolongs  the  purification  still ;  and  while  he 
appears  not,  no  other  rites  can  be  resumed,  nor  any  legal 
defilement  be  contracted.  Thus,  meanwhile,  ordinances  cease 
their  obligation,  and  the  sin  against  them  has  lost  its  power. 


136  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

How  different  this  from  the  offerings  of  Jerusalem,  whose 
temple  was  but  the  "  symbol  and  shadow  "  of  that  sanctuary 
above.  In  the  Hebrew  "  sacrifices  there  was  a  remembrance 
again  made  of  sins  every  year  " ;  "  the  high-priest  annually 
entered  the  holy  place  "  ;  being  but  a  mortal,  he  could  not  go 
in  with  his  own  blood  and  remain,  but  must  take  that  of  other 
creatures  and  return  ;  and  hence  it  became  "  not  possible  that 
the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats  should  take  away  sins,"  for 
instantly  they  began  to  accumulate  again.  But  to  the  very 
nature  of  Christ's  offering  a  perpetuity  of  efficacy  belongs ; 
bearing  no  other  than  "  his  own  blood,"  he  was  immortal 
when  his  ministration  began,  and  "  ever  liveth  to  make  his 
intercession " ;  he  could  "  not  offer  himself  often,  for  then 
must  he  often  have  suffered  since  the  foundation  of  the 
world,"  —  and  "  it  is  appointed  unto  men  only  once  to  die  " ; 
so  that  "  once  for  all  he  entered  into  the  holy  place,  and 
obtained  a  redemption  that  is  perpetual "  ;  "  once  in  the  end 
of  the  world  hath  he  appeared,  and  by  sacrificing  himself 
hath  absolutely  put  away  sin " ;  "  this  man,  after  he  had 
offered  one  sacrifice  for  sins,  for  ever  sat  down  on  the  right 
hand  of  God,"  "  for  by  one  offering  he  hath  perfected  for 
ever  them  that  are  sanctified."  The  ceremonial,  then,  with 
its  periodical  transgressions  and  atonements,  is  suspended ; 
the  services  of  the  outer  tabernacle  cease,  for  the  holiest  of 
all  is  made  manifest ;  one  who  is  "  priest  for  ever "  dwells 
therein  ;  —  one  "  consecrated  for  evermore,"  "  holy,  harmless, 
undefiled,  in  his  celestial  dwelling  quite  separate  from  sinners ; 
who  needeth  not  daily,  as  those  high-priests,  to  offer  up  sacri- 
fice, first  for  his  own  sins,  and  then  for  the  people's  ;  for  this 
he  did  once  for  all  when  he  offered  up  himself."  * 

*  Heb.  vii.  27.  Let  the  reader  look  carefully  again  into  the  verbal  and 
logical  structure  of  this  verse ;  and  then  ask  himself  whether  it  is  not  as 
plain  as  words  can  make  it,  that  Christ  "  once  for  all  "  offered  up  "  a  sacrifice 
frst  for  HIS  OWN  SINS,  and.  then  for  the  people's.  The  argument  surely  is 
this:  "  He  need  not  do  the  daily  thing,  for  he  has  done  it  once  for  all;  the 
never-finished  work  of  other  pontiffs,  a  single  act  of  his  achieved."  The 
sentiment  loses  its  meaning,  unless  that  which  he  did  once  is  the  selfsame 
thing  which  they  did  always :  and  what  was  that  ?  —  the  offering  by  the 


SCHEME    OF   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  137 

Nor  is  it  in  its  perpetuity  alone  that  the  efficacy  of  the 
Christian  sacrifice  transcends  the  atonements  of  the  law ;  it 
removes  a  higher  order  of  ritual  transgressions.  It  cannot 
be  supposed,  indeed,  that  Messiah's  life  is  no  nobler  offering 
than  that  of  a  creature  from  the  herd  or  flock,  and  will  confer 
no  more  immunity.  Accordingly,  it  goes  beyond  those  "  sins 
of  ignorance"  those  ceremonial  inadvertences,  for  which  alone 
there  was  remission  in  Israel ;  and  reaches  to  voluntary  neg- 
lects of  the  sacerdotal  ordinances ;  insuring  indemnity  for 
legal  omissions,  when  incurred  not  simply  by  the  accidents 
of  the  flesh,  but  even  by  intention  of  the  conscience.  This 
is  no  greater  boon  than  the  dignity  of  the  sacrifice  requires  ; 
and  does  but  give  to  his  people  below  that  living  relation  of 
soul  to  God  which  he  himself  sustains  above.  "  If  the  blood 
of  bulls  and  of  goats  ....  sanctifieth  to  the  purifying  of  the 

high-priest  of  a  sacrifice  first  for  his  own  sins,  and  then  for  the  people's. 
With  what  propriety,  then,  can  Mr.  Buddicom  ask  us  this  question :  "  Why 
is  he  said  to  have  excelled  the  Jewish  high-priest  in  not  offering  a  sacrifice 
for  himself  ?"  I  submit,  that  no  such  thing  is  said ;  but  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  is  positively  affirmed  that  Christ  did  offer  sacrifice  for  his  own  sins. 
So  plain  indeed  is  this,  that  Trinitarian  commentators  are  forced  to  slip  in  a 
restraining  word  and  an  additional  sentiment  into  the  last  clause  of  the  verse. 
Thus  Pierce:  "  Who  has  no  need,  like  the  priests  under  the  law,  from  time 
to  time  to  offer  up  sacrifice  first  for  his  own  sins,  and  after  that  for  the  peo- 
ple's. For  this  latter  he  did  once  for  all  when  he  offered  up  himself;  and  as 
to  the  former,  he  had  no  occasion  to  do  it  at  all."  And  no  doubt  the  writer  of 
the  Epistle  ought  to  have  said  just  this,  if  he  intended  to  draw  the  kind  of 
contrast  which  orthodox  theology  requires,  between  Jesus  and  the  Hebrew 
priests.  He  limits  the  opposition  between  them  to  one  particular ;  —  the  Son 
of  Aaron  made  offering  daily,  —  the  Son  of  God  once  for  all.  Divines  must 
add  another  particular;  —  that  the  Jewish  priest  atoned  for  two  classes  of  sins, 
his  own  and  the  people's,  —  Christ  for  the  people's  only.  Suppose  for  a  mo- 
ment that  this  was  the  author's  design ;  that  the  word  "  this,"  instead  of  hav- 
ing its  proper  grammatical  antecedent,  may  be  restrained,  as  in  the  commen- 
tary cited  above,  to  the  sacrifice  for  the  people's  sins;  then  the  word  "  daily" 
may  be  left  out,  without  disturbance  to  the  other  substantive  particular  of 
the  contrast :  the  verse  will  then  stand  thus :  "  Who  needeth  not,  as  those 
high-priests,  to  offer  up  sacrifice  for  his  own  sins;  for  he  offered  up  sacrifice 
for  the  people's  sins,  when  he  offered  up  himself."  Here,  all  the  reasoning 
is  obviously  gone,  and  the  sentence  becomes  a  mere  inanity :  to  make  sense, 
we  want,  instead  of  the  latter  clause,  the  sentiment  of  Pierce,  — for  "  he  had 
no  occasion  to  do  this  at  all."  This,  however,  is  an  invention  of  the  exposi- 
12* 


"138  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

flesh,  how  much  more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who  through 
the  eternal  Spirit  offered  himself  without  spot  to  God,  purify 
(even)  your  conscience  from  dead  works  (ritual  observances) 
to  serve  the  living  God  !  "  Let  then  the  ordinances  go,  and 
the  Lord  "  put  his  laws  into  the  mind,  and  write  them  in  the 
heart "  ;  and  let  all  have  "  boldness  to  enter  into  the  holiest 
by  the  blood  of  Jesus,  by  this  new  and  living  way  which  he 
hath  consecrated  for  us " ;  "  provoking  each  other  to  love 
and  to  good  works." 

See,  then,  in  brief,  the  objection  of  the  Hebrews  to  the 
Gospel ;  and  the  reply  of  their  instructor.  They  said  :  "  What 
a  blank  is  this ;  you  have  no  temple,  no  priest,  no  ritual ! 
How  is  it  that,  in  his  ancient  covenant,  God  is  so  strict  about 
ceremonial  service,  and  permits  no  neglect,  however  inciden- 
tal, without  atonement ;  yet  in  this  new  economy  throws  the 
whole  system  away,  letting  us  run  up  an  everlasting  debt  to 
a  law  confessedly  unrepealed,  without  redemption  of  it  or 
atonement  for  it  ?  " 


tor,  more  jealous  for  his  author's  orthodoxy  than  for  his  composition.  I  think 
it  necessary  to  add,  that,  by  leaving  out  the  most  emphatic  word  in  this 
verse  (the  word  once)  Mr.  Buddicom  has  suppressed  the  author's  antithesis, 
and  favored  the  suggestion  of  his  own.  I  have  no  doubt  that  this  was  uncon- 
sciously done;  but  it  shows  how  system  rubs  off  the  angles  of  Scriptural 
difficulties.  —  I  subjoin  a  part  of  the  note  of  John  Crell  on  the  passage:  "  De 
pontifice  Christo  loquitur.  Quid  vero  fecit  semel  Christus?  quid  aliud, 
quam  quod  Pontifex  antiquus  stata  die  quotannis  *  faciebat?  Principaliter 
autem  hie  non  de  oblatione  pro  peccatis  populi ;  sed  de  oblatione  pro  ipsius 
Pontificis  peccatis  agi,  ex  superioribus,  ipsoque  rationum  contextu  mani- 
festum  est." 

The  sins  which  his  sacrifice  cancelled  must  have  been  of  the  same  order  in 
the  people  and  in  himself;  certainly  therefore  not  moral  in  their  character, 
but  ceremonial.  His  death  was,  for  himself  no  less  than  for  his  Hebrew  dis- 
ciples, a  commutation  for  the  Mosaic  ordinances.  Had  he  not  died,  he  must 
have  continued  under  their  power;  "were  he  on  earth,  he  would  not  be  a 
priest,"  or  have  "  obtained  that  more  excellent  ministry,"  by  which  he  clears 
away,  in  the  courts  above,  all  possibilities  of  ritual  sin  below,  and  himself 
emerges  from  legal  to  spiritual  relations. 

*  This  is  obviously  the  meaning  of  Kad"  rfp-epav  in  this  passage ;  from 
time  to  time,  and  in  the  case  alluded  to,  yearly ;  not,  as  in  the  common  ver- 
sion, daily. 


SCHEME    OF    VICAKIOL'S    REDEMPTION.  139 

"Not  without  redemption  and  atonement,"  replies  their 
evangelical  teacher ;  temple,  sacrifice,  priest,  remain  to  us 
also,  only  glorified  into  proportions  worthy  of  a  heavenly 
dispensation  ;  our  temple,  in  the  skies  ;  our  sacrifice,  Messiah's 
mortal  person ;  our  priest,  his  ever-living  spirit.  How  poor 
the  efficacy  of  your  former  offerings !  year  after  year,  your 
ritual  debt  began  again :  for  the  blood  dried  and  vanished 
from  the  tabernacle  which  it  purified ;  the  priest  returned 
from  the  inner  shrine ;  and  when  there,  he  stood,  with  the 
interceding  blood,  before  the  emblem,  not  the  reality,  of 
God.  But  Christ,  not  at  the  end  of  a  year,  but  at  the  end  of 
the  great  world-era  of  the  Lord,  has  come  to  offer  up  himself, 
—  no  lamb  so  unblemished  as  he ;  his  voluntary  and  immortal 
spirit,  than  which  was  nothing  ever  more  divinely  consecrate, 
becomes  officiating  priest,  and  strikes  his  own  person  with 
immolating  blow ;  it  falls  and  bleeds  on  earth,  as  on  the  outer 
altar,  standing  on  the  threshold  of  the  sanctuary  of  heaven : 
thither  he  ascends  with  the  memorials  of  his  death,  vanishes 
into  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the  skies,  presents  himself  before 
the  very  living  God,  and  sanctifies  the  temple  there  and 
worshippers  here  ;  saying  to  us,  '  Drop  now  for  ever  the  legal 
burdens  that  weigh  you  down  ;  doubt  not  that  you  are  free, 
as  my  glorified  spirit  here,  from  the  defilements  you  are  wont 
to  dread  ;  I  stay  behind  this  veil  of  visible  things,  to  clear  you 
of  all  such  taint,  and  put  away  such  sin  eternally.  Trust, 
then,  in  me,  and  take  up  the  freedom  of  your  souls :  burst  the 
dead  works,  that  cling  round  your  conscience  like  cerements 
of  the  grave ;  and  rise  to  me,  by  the  living  power  of  duty, 
and  a  loving  allegiance  to  God.' " 

So  far,  then,  as  the  death  of  Christ  is  treated  in  Scripture 
dogmatically,  rather  than  historically,  its  effects  are  viewed  in 
contrast  with  the  different  order  of  things  which  must  have 
been  expected,  had  he,  as  Messiah,  not  died.  And  thus 
regarded,  it  presented  itself  to  the  minds  of  the  Apostles  in 
three  relations :  — 

First,  to  the  Gentiles,  whom  it  drew  in  to  be  subjects 
of  the  Messiah,  by  breaking  down  the  barriers  of  his  lie- 


140  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

brew   personality,  and   rendering   him   spiritual   as   well   as 
immortal. 

Secondly,  to  the  unbelieving  Jews ;  whom  his  retirement 
from  this  world  delivered  from  the  judgment  due  to  them,  on 
the  principles  of  their  own  law,  both  for  their  general  viola- 
tion of  the  conditions  of  their  covenant,  and  for  their  positive 
rejection  of  him.  His  absence  reopened  their  opportunities  ; 
and  to  tender  them  this  act  of  long-suffering,  he  took  on  him- 
self the  death  which  had  been  incurred  by  them. 

Thirdly,  to  the  believing  Jews  ;  the  terms  of  whose  disci- 
pleship  the  Messiah's  death  had  changed,  destroying  all  the 
benefits  of  their  lineage,  and  substituting  an  act  of  the  mind, 
the  simpler  claim  of  faith.  It  was  therefore  a  commutation 
for  the  Ritual  Law,  and  gave  them  impunity  and  atonement 
for  all  its  violations. 

With  the  last  two  of  these  relations,  beyond  their  remark- 
able historical  interest,  we  have  no  personal  concern.  The 
first  remains,  and  ever  will  remain,  worthy  of  the  glorious  joy 
with  which  Paul  regarded  and  expounded  it.  God  has  com- 
mitted the  rule  of  this  world  to  no  exclusive  prince,  and  no 
sacerdotal  power,  and  no  earthly  majesty ;  but  to  one  whose 
spirit,  too  divine  to  be  limited  to  place  and  time,  broke  through 
clouds  of  sorrow  into  the  clearest  heaven;  and  thither  has 
since  been  drawing  our  human  love,  though  for  ages  now  he 
has  been  unseen  and  immortal.  An  impartial  God,  a  holy 
and  spiritual  law,  an  infinite  hope  for  all  men,  are  given  to 
us  by  that  generous  cross. 

It  is  evident  that  all  three  of  the  relations  which  I  have 
described  belonged  to  the  death  of  Jesus,  in  his  capacity  of 
Messiah ;  and  could  have  had  no  existence  if  he  had  not 
borne  this  character,  but  had  been  simply  a  private  martyr  to 
his  convictions.  The  foregoing  exposition  gives  a  direct 
answer  to  the  inquiry,  pressed  without  the  slightest  perti- 
nence upon  the  Unitarian,  why  the  phraseology  of  the  cross 
is  never  found  applied  to  Paul  or  Peter,  or  any  other  noble 
confessor,  who  died  in  attestation  of  the  truth ;  why  "  no 
record  is  given  that  we  are  justified  by  the  blood  of  Stephen; 


SCHEME    OP   VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION.  141 

or  that  he  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body,  and  made  reconcilia- 
tion for  us."*  I  know  not  why  such  a  question  should  be 
submitted  to  us ;  we  have  assuredly  no  concern  with  it  5 
having  never  dreamt  that  the  Apostles  could  have  written  as 
they  did  respecting  the  death  on  Calvary,  if  they  had  thought 
of  it  only  as  a  scene  of  martyrdom.  We  have  passed  under 
review  the  whole  language  of  the  New  Testament  on  this 
subject ;  and  in  the  interpretation  of  it  have  not  even  once  had 
recourse  to  this,  which  is  said  to  be  our  only  view  of  the 
cross.  We  have  seen  the  Apostles  justly  announcing  their 
Lord's  death  as  a  proper  propitiation;  because  it  placed 
whole  classes  of  men,  without  any  meritorious  change  in  their 
character,  in  saving  relations :  declaring  it  a  strict  substitute 
for  others'  punishment ;  on  the  ground  that  there  were  those 
who  must  have  perished,  if  he  had  not ;  and  that  he  died  and 
retired,  that  they  might  remain  and  live :  describing  it  as  a 
sacrifice  which  put  away  sin  ;  because  it  did  that  for  ever, 
which  the  Levitical  atonements  achieved  for  a  day :  but  we 
have  not  found  them  ever  appealing  to  it  either  as  a  satisfac- 
tion to  the  justice  of  God,  or  an  example  of  martyrdom  to 
men.  The  Trinitarians  have  one  idea  of  this  event  them- 
selves ;  and  their  fancy  provides  their  opponents  with  one 
idea  of  it ;  of  the  former  not  a  trace  exists,  on  any  page 
of  Scripture ;  and  of  the  latter  the  Unitarian  need  not  avail 
himself  at  all,  in  explaining  the  language  whereof  it  is  said 
to  be  his  solitary  key. 

Nowhere,  then,  in  Scripture  do  we  meet  with  anything 
corresponding  with  the  prevailing  notions  of  vicarious  re- 
demption ;  everywhere,  and  most  emphatically  in  the  per- 
sonal instructions  of  our  Lord,  do  we  find  a  doctrine  of 
forgiveness,  and  an  idea  of  salvation,  utterly  inconsistent 
with  it.  He  spake  often  of  the  unqualified  clemency  of  God 
to  his  returning  children ;  never  once  of  the  satisfaction 
demanded  by  his  justice.  He  spake  of  the  joy  in  heaven 
over  one  sinner  that  repenteth ;  but  was  silent  on  the  sacri- 

*  Mr.  Buddicom's  Lecture  on  the  Atonement,  p.  471. 


142  INCONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

ficial  faith,  without  which  penitence  is  said  to  be  unavailing. 
Nor  did  he,  like  his  modern  disciples,  teach  that  there  are 
two  separate  salvations,  which  must  follow  each  other  in  a 
fixed  order  :  first,  redemption  from  the  penalty,  secondly, 
from  the  spirit,  of  sin ;  pardon  for  the  past,  before  sanctifica- 
tion  in  the  present ;  a  removal  of  the  "  hinderance  in  God," 
previous  to  its  annihilation  in  ourselves.  If  indeed  there 
were  in  Christianity  two  deliverances,  discriminated  and  suc- 
cessive, it  would  be  more  in  accordance  with  its  spirit  to 
invert  this  order ;  —  to  recall  from  alienation  first,  and  an- 
nounce forgiveness  afterwards  ;  to  restore  from  guilt,  before 
cancelling  the  penalty  ;  and  permit  the  healing  to  anticipate 
the  pardoning  love.  At  least,  there  would  seem,  in  such 
arrangement,  to  be  a  greater  jealousy  for  the  holiness  of 
the  divine  law,  a  severer  reservation  of  God's  complacency 
for  those  who  have  broken  from  the  service  of  sin,  than 
in  the  system  which  proclaims  impunity  to  the  rebel  will, 
ere  yet  its  estrangement  is  renounced.  If  the  outward  re- 
mission precedes  the  inward  sanctification,  then  does  God 
admit  to  favor  the  yet  unsanctified ;  guilt  keeps  us  in  no 
exile  from  him:  and  though  the  Holy  Spirit  is  to  follow 
afterwards,  it  becomes  the  peculiar  office  of  the  cross  to  lift 
us  as  we  are,  with  every  stain  upon  the  soul  and  every  vile 
habit  unretraced,  from  the  brink  of  perdition  to  the  assur- 
ance of  glory :  the  divine  lot  is  given  to  us,  before  the 
divine  love  is  awakened  in  us  ;  and  the  heirs  of  heaven  have 
yet  to  become  the  children  of  holiness.  With  what  con- 
sistency can  the  advocates  of  such  an  economy  accuse  its 
opponents  of  dealing  lightly  with  sin,  of  deluding  men  into  a 
false  trust,  and  administering  seductive  flatteries  to  human 
nature  ?  *  What !  shall  we,  who  plant  in  every  soul  of  sin  a 
hell,  whence  no  foreign  force,  no  external  God,  can  pluck 
us,  any  more  than  they  can  tear  us  from  our  identity,  —  we, 
who  hide  the  fires  of  torment  in  no  viewless  gulf,  but  make 
them  ubiquitous  as  guilt,  —  we,  who  suffer  no  outward  agent 

*  See  Mr.  M'Neile's  Lecture,  pp.  302,  311,  328,  340,  341. 


SCHEME    OP   VICARIOUS   REDEMPTION.  143 

from  Eden,  or  the  Abyss,  or  Calvary,  to  encroach  upon  the 
solitude  of  man's  responsibility,  and  confuse  the  simplicity 
of  conscience,  —  we,  who  teach  that  God  will  not,  and  even 
cannot,  spare  the  froward,  till  they  be  froward  no  more,  but 
must  permit  the  burning  lash  to  fall,  till  they  cry  aloud  for 
mercy,  and  throw  themselves  freely  into  his  embrace  ;  —  shall 
we  be  rebuked  for  a  lax  administration  of  peace,  by  those 
who  think  that  a  moment  may  turn  the  alien  into  the  elect  ? 
It  is  no  flattery  of  our  nature,  to  reverence  deeply  its  moral 
capacities :  we  only  discern  in  them  the  more  solemn  trust, 
and  see  in  their  abuse  the  fouler  shame.  And  it  is  not  of 
what  men  are,  but  of  what  they  might  be,  that  we  encourage 
noble  and  cheerful  thoughts.  Doubtless,  we  think  exaggera- 
tion possible  (which  our  opponents  apparently  do  not)  even 
in  the  portraiture  of  their  actual  character :  and  perhaps  we 
are  not  the  less  likely  to  awaken  true  convictions  of  sin,  that 
we  strive  to  speak  of  it  with  the  voice  of  discriminative  jus- 
tice, instead  of  the  monotonous  thunders  of  vengeance ;  and 
to  draw  its  image  in  the  natural  tints  provided  by  the  con- 
science, rather  than  in  the  preternatural  flame-color  mingled 
in  the  crucibles  of  hell. 

In  making  penal  redemption  and  moral  redemption  sep- 
arate and  successive,  the  vicarious  scheme,  we  submit,  is 
inconsistent  with  the  Christian  idea  of  salvation.  Not  that 
we  take  the  second,  and  reject  the  first,  as  our  Trinitarian 
friends  imagine  ;  nor  that  we  invert  their  order.  We  accept 
them  both ;  putting  them,  however,  not  in  succession,  but  in 
super-position,  so  that  they  coalesce.  The  power  and  the 
punishment  of  sin  perish  together ;  and  together  begin  the 
holiness  and  the  bliss  of  heaven.  Whatever  extracts  the 
poison  cools  the  sting :  nor  can  the  divine  vigor  of  spiritual 
health  enter,  without  its  freedom  and  its  joy.  That  there  can 
be  any  separate  dealings  with  our  past  guilt  and  with  our 
present  character,  is  not  a  truth  of  God,  but  a  fiction  of  the 
schools.  The  sanctification  of  the  one  is  the  redemption  of 
the  other.  The  mind  given  up  to  passion,  or  chained  to 
self,  or  anyhow  alienated  from  the  love  and  life  divine, 
dwells,  whatever  be  its  faith,  in  the  dark  and  terrible  abyss ; 


144  INCONSISTENCY    OF   THE 

while  he,  and  he  only,  that,  in  the  freedom  and  tranquillity 
of  great  affections,  communes  with  God  and  toils  for  men, 
understands  the  meaning,  and  wins  the  promises,  of  heaven. 
Am  I  asked :  "  What,  then,  is  to  persuade  the  sinful  heart 
thus  to  draw  near  to  God ;  —  what,  but  a  proclamation  of 
absolute  pardon,  can  break  down  the  secret  distrust,  which 
keeps  our  nature  back,  wrapped  in  the  reserve  of  conscious 
guilt?"  I  reply;  however  much  these  fears  and  hesitations 
might  cling  round  us,  and  restrain  us  from  the  mystic  Deity 
of  Nature,  they  can  have  no  place  in  our  intercourse  with  the 
Father  whom  Jesus  represents.  It  needs  only  that  Christ 
be  truly  his  image,  to  know  "  that  the  hinderance  is  not  with 
him,  but  entirely  in  ourselves " ;  *  to  see  that  there  is  no 
anger  in  his  look ;  to  feel  that  he  invites  us  to  unreserved 
confession,  and  accepts  our  self-abandonment  to  him,  —  that 
he  lifts  the  repentant,  prostrate  at  his  feet,  and  speaks  the 
words  of  severe,  but  truest  hope.  Am  I  told,  "that  only 
the  gratitude  excited  by  personal  rescue  from  tremendous 
danger,  by  an  unconditional  and  entire  deliverance,  is  capable 
of  winning  our  reluctant  nature,  of  opening  the  soul  to  the 
access  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  and  bringing  it  to  the  service  of 
the  Everlasting  Will "  ?  I  rejoice  to  acknowledge,  that  some 
such  disinterested  power  must  be  awakened,  some  mighty 
forces  of  the  heart  be  called  out,  ere  the  regeneration  can 
take  place  that  renders  us  children  of  the  Highest ;  ere  we 
can  break,  with  true  new  birth,  from  the  shell  of  self,  and 
try  and  train  our  wings  in  the  atmosphere  of  God.  The 
permanent  work  of  duty  must  be  wrought  by  the  affections ; 
not  by  the  constraint,  however  solemn,  of  hope  and  fear ;  no 
self-perfectionating  process,  elaborated  by  an  anxious  will, 
has  warmth  enough  to  ripen  the  soul's  diviner  fruits ;  the 
walks  of  outward  morality,  and  the  slopes  of  deliberate  medi- 
tation, it  may  keep  smooth  and  trim ;  but  cannot  make  the 
true  life-blossoms  set,  as  in  a  garden  of  the  Lord,  and  the 
foliage  wave  as  with  the  voice  of  God  among  the  trees.  I 
gladly  admit  that,  to  a  believer  in  the  vicarious  sacrifice,  the 

*  Mr.  M'Neile's  Lecture,  p.  338. 


SCHEME    OF    VICARIOUS    KKDKMPTION.  145 

sense  of  pardon,  the  love  of  the  Great  Deliverer,  may  well 
fulfil  this  blessed  office,  of  carrying  him  out  of  himself  in 
genuine  allegiance  to  a  being  most  benign  and  holy.  And 
perceiving  that,  if  this  doctrine  were  removed,  there  is  not, 
in  the  system  of  which  it  forms  a  part,  and  which  else  would 
be  all  terror,  anything  that  could  perform  the  same  generous 
part,  I  can  understand  why  it  seems  to  its  advocates  an 
essential  power  in  the  renovation  of  the  character.  But 
great  as  it  may  be,  within  the  limits  of  its  own  narrow 
scheme,  ideas  possessed  of  higher  moral  efficacy  are  not 
wanting,  when  we  pass  into  a  region  of  nobler  and  more 
Christian  thought.  Shall  we  say  that  the  view  of  the  Infinite 
Ruler,  given  in  the  spoken  wisdom  or  the  living  spirit  of 
Christ,  has  no  sanctifying  power  ?  Yet  where  is  there  any 
trace  in  it  of  the  satisfactionist's  redemption  ?  When  we  sit 
at  Messiah's  feet,  that  transforming  gratitude  for  an  extin- 
guished penalty,  on  which  the  prevailing  theology  insists,  as 
its  central  emotion,  becomes  replaced  by  a  similar  and  pro- 
founder  sentiment  towards  the  Eternal  Father.  If  to  rescue 
men  from  a  dreadful  fate  in  the  future  be  a  just  title  to  our 
reverence,  never  to  have  designed  that  fate  claims  an  affec- 
tion yet  more  devoted  ;  if  there  be  a  divine  mercy  in  annihi- 
lating an  awful  curse,  in  shedding  only  blessing  there  is  surely 
a  diviner  still.  Shall  the  love  restored  to  us  after  long  delay, 
and  in  consideration  of  an  equivalent,  work  mightily  on  the 
heart,  —  and  shall  that  which  asked  no  purchase,  which  has 
been  veiled  by  no  cloud,  which  has  enfolded  us  always  in  its 
tranquillity,  nor  can  ever  quit  the  soul  opened  to  receive  it, 
fail  to  penetrate  the  conscience,  and  dissolve  the  frosts  of  our 
self-love  by  some  holier  flame  ?  Never  shall  it  be  found  true, 
that  God  must  threaten  us  with  vengeance,  ere  we  can  feel 
the  shelter  of  his  grace  ! 

In  truth,  the  Christian  idea  of  salvation  cannot  be  better 
illustrated,  than  by  the  doubt  which  has  been  entertained 
respecting  the  proper  translation  of  my  text.  Some,  refer- 
ring it  to  spiritual  redemption,  adhere  to  the  common  ver- 
sion ;  others,  seeing  that  the  Apostle  Peter  is  explaining  "  by 
13 


146  SCHEME    OV    VICARIOUS    REDEMPTION. 

what  power  or  by  what  name  "  he  had  cured  the  lame  man 
at  the  temple  gate,  refer  the  words  to  this  miracle  of  deliver- 
ance, and  render  them  thus  :  "  Neither  is  there  healing  in  any 
other ;  for  there  is  none  other  name  under  heaven  given 
among  men,  whereby  we  can  be  healed"  It  matters  little 
which  it  is  ;  for  whether  we  speak  of  body  or  of  mind,  Jesus 
"  saves "  us  by  "  making  us  whole  "  ;  by  putting  forth  upon 
us  a  divine  and  healing  power,  by  which  past  suffering  and 
present  decrepitude  disappear  together ;  which  supplies  the 
defective  elements  of  our  nature,  cools  the  burning  of  inward 
fever,  or  calls  into  being  new  senses  and  perceptions,  open- 
ing a  diviner  universe  to  our  experience.  The  deformed  and 
crooked  will,  bowed  by  Satan,  lo !  these  many  years,  and  no- 
wise able  to  lift  up  itself,  he  loosens  and  makes  straight  in 
uprightness.  The  moral  paralytic,  collapsed  and  prostrate 
amid  the  stir  of  life,  and  incapably  gazing  on  the  moving 
waters  in  which  others  find  their  health,  has  often  started  up 
at  the  summons  of  that  voice,  though  perchance  "  he  wist  not 
who  it  was  "  ;  and,  going  his  way,  has  found  it  to  be  "  the 
sabbath,"  and  owned  the  "  work  "  of  one  who  is  in  the  spirit 
of  "  the  Father."  From  the  eye  long  dark  and  blind  to  duty 
and  to  God,  he  has  caused  the  film  to  pass  away,  and  shown 
the  solemn  look  of  life  beneath  a  heaven  so  tranquil  and 
sublime.  Even  the  dead  of  soul,  close  wrapped  in  bandages  of 
selfishness,  —  that  greediest  of  graves,  —  have  been  quickened 
by  his  piercing  call,  and  have  come  forth,  to  learn,  "  when 
risen,"  that  only  in  the  meekness  that  can  obey  is  there  the 
power  to  command,  only  in  the  love  that  serves  is  there  the 
life  of  heart-felt  liberty.  To  call,  then,  on  the  name  and  trust 
in  the  spirit  of  Christ,  is  to  invoke  the  restoring  power  of  God; 
to  give  symmetry  and  speed  to  our  lame  affections,  and  the 
vigor  of  an  athlete  to  our  limping  wills.  There  is  not  any 
Christian  salvation  that  is  not  thus  identical  with  Christian 
perfection  :  "  nor  any  other  name  under  heaven  given  among 
men,  whereby  we  may  be  (thus)  made  whole"  Let  all  that 
would  "  be  perfect  be  thus  minded  "  ;  seek  "  the  measure  of 
the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ "  ;  and  they  shall  find  in 
him  a  "  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God." 


MEDIATORIAL   RELIGION. 


The  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  and  its  Relation  to  Remission 
of  Sins  and  Eternal  Life.  By  JOHN  M'LEOD  CAMPBELL. 
Cambridge:  Macmillan  &  Co.  1856. 

THIS  is  a  strange  book.  A  Greek  would  have  hated  it. 
A  Puritan  would  have  found  it  savory,  even  where  it  was  un- 
sound. Bosenkranz,  who  has  written  on  the  JEsihetik  des 
Hcisslichen,  would  have  been  thankful  for  such  a  fund  of  illus- 
tration. Cumbrous,  tiresome,  monotonous,  it  has  few  attrac- 
tions for  the  natural  man,  who  may  have  a  weakness  in  favor 
of  pure  English  and  nice  grammar.  It  despises  the  graces  of 
carnal  literature,  and  treats  all  the  color  and  music  of  lan- 
guage as  the  Roundheads  treated  a  cathedral,  silencing  the 
"box  of  whistles"  and  smashing  the  "mighty  big  angels  in 
glass."  And  yet,  if  you  can  get  over  its  grating  way  of  de- 
livering itself,  you  will  find  it  no  barbaric  product,  but  the 
utterance  of  a  deep  and  practised  thinker,  charged  with  the 
richest  experiences  of  the  Christian  life,  and  resolute  to  clear 
them  from  every  tangle  of  fiction  or  pretence.  Beneath  the 
uncouth  form  there  is  not  only  severe  truth,  but  great  tender- 
ness and  beauty,  —  a  fine  apprehension  of  the  real  inner  strife 
of  tempted  men,  and  an  intense  faith  in  an  open  way  of  es- 
cape from  it,  without  compromise  of  any  sanctity.  The  author, 
though  not  tuneful  in  his  speech,  has  the  gifts  of  a  true  proph- 
et ;  and  often  enables  one  to  fancy  what  Isaiah  might  have 


148  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

been  if  he  had  heard  nothing  but  the  bagpipe,  and  had  set  his 
"  burdens "  to  its  drone.  Whether  Mr.  Campbell's  style  has 
been  formed  north  of  the  Tweed,  we  know  not.  In  any  case, 
it  is  trained  in  the  school  of  Calvinism ;  is  untouched  there- 
fore by  any  feeling  for  art ;  and  runs  on  with  a  sort  of  ex- 
temporaneous habit,  insufficiently  relieved  by  occasional  flashes 
of  grotesque  and  forcible  expression.  It  is  only  in  exterior 
aspect,  however,  that  he  presents  the  features  of  the  rugged 
old  Calvinism :  and  though  the  first-born  of  that  system  and 
its  younger  sons  are  distinguished  like  Isaac's  children,  "  Esau 
is  a  hairy  man,  and  Jacob  is  a  smooth  man,"  yet  no  true  pa- 
triarch of  the  school  can  be  so  blind  as  not  to  see  beneath  our 
author's  goat-skin  dress,  and  know  that  he  is  other  than  the 
heir.  In  fact,  the  peculiarity  of  this  work  as  a  theological 
phenomenon  is,  that  it  is  a  destruction  of  Calvinism  without 
any  revolt  from  it,  —  an  escape  from  it  through  its  own  in- 
terior. Its  postulates  are  not  denied.  Its  phraseology  is  not 
rejected.  Its  statement  of  the  problem  of  redemption  is  in 
the  main  accepted.  Its  provision  for  the  solution,  —  the  In- 
carnation of  the  Son,  —  is  sacredly  preserved.  Yet  these 
elements  are  put  into  such  play  as  to  make  it  checkmate  itself 
on  its  own  area.  Its  definitions  are  shown  to  be  suicidal ;  and 
its  sharp-edged  logic  is  used  to  cut  through  the  ligaments  that 
constrain  and  shape  it. 

We  have  spoken  first  of  the  style  of  this  book,  because  it 
strikes  the  reader  at  the  outset,  and  is  not  unlikely  to  repel 
him  if  he  is  not  warned.  Of  one  other  feature,  derived  from 
the  same  school,  we  must  say  a  word,  to  qualify  the  admiration 
and  gratitude  which  we  shall  then  ungrudgingly  tender  to  the 
author.  In  common  with  all  the  great  masters  of  the  "  Evan- 
gelical "  school,  he  is  too  much  at  home  with  the  Divine  econ- 
omy ;  knows  too  well  how  the  same  thing  appears  from  the 
finite  and  the  infinite  point  of  view ;  can  tell  too  surely  how 
a  mixed  nature,  both  divine  and  human,  would  feel  on  look- 
ing from  both  ends  at  once ;  and  altogether  goes  with  too 
close  a  search  to  the  "  secret  place  of  the  Most  High."  Not 
that  he  speaks  unworthily  on  these  high  themes ;  we  have 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  149 

nothing  truer  to  suggest,  except  more  silence.  But  we  must 
confess  that  when  a  teacher  lays  down  the  conditions  of  divine 
possibility,  expatiates  psychologically  on  the  sentiments  of  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  and  seems  as  though  he  had  been  al- 
lowed a  peep  into  the  autobiography  of  God,  we  shrink  from 
the  sharp  outlines,  and  feel  that  we  shall  believe  more  if  we 
are  shown  less.  With  so  many  soundings  taken,  and  so  many 
channels  buoyed,  the  sense  of  the  shoreless  sea  is  gone,  and 
we  find  only  a  port  of  traffic,  with  coast-lights  instead  of  stars. 
The  temptation  to  this  theological  map-making  has  always 
proved  peculiarly  strong  among  the  disciples  of  Geneva :  and 
the  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  very  nature  of  the  problem 
they  have  attempted  to  resolve.  Religion  has  two  foci  to  de- 
termine, —  the  divine  nature  and  the  human.  Athanasius  and 
the  Greek  influence  fixed  the  doctrine  of  the  Godhead :  Au- 
gustine and  the  Latin  Church  defined  the  spiritual  state  of 
man.  The  one,  it  has  been  said,  produced  a  theology;  the 
other,  an  anthropology.  In  the  construction  'of  the  former,  it 
is  obvious  that  the  appeal  could  be  made  only  to  positive  au- 
thority, whether  of  Scripture  or  the  Church.  On  the  Nicene 
question  no  one  could  pretend  to  have  personal  insight  or 
scientific  data :  it  must  be  decided  by  arbitrary  vote  on  im- 
pressions of  testimony.  But  for  establishing  a  doctrine  of 
humanity,  the  living  resources  of  consciousness  and  experience 
were  present  with  perpetual  witness ;  every  proposition  ad- 
vanced could  be  confronted  with  its  corresponding  reality : 
the  disciple  could  not  help  carrying  the  dogma  inward  to  the 
test  of  his  self-knowledge.  The  scheme  of  the  Trinity  partook 
of  the  nature  of  a  Gnosis,  which  dwelt  apart  from  the  stir  of 
phenomena,  and,  having  once  set  and  crystallized,  could  only 
be  hung  up  for  preservation.  The  dogmas  of  human  deprav- 
ity and  helplessness  partook  of  the  nature  of  a  Science,  com- 
ing in  contact  with  the  facts  of  life  and  character  at  every 
point.  Moral  experience  had  something  to  say  to  them :  and 
unless  they  could  keep  good  terms  with  it,  they  could  not 
hope  to  hold  their  ground.  Hence  the  Augustinian  divines 
have  been  constrained  to  seek  a  philosophy  of  religion,  and 
13* 


150  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

to  collate  the  text  of  their  Scriptural  system  with  the  running 
paraphrase  of  actual  life.  No  writers  have  contributed  so 
much  to  lay  bare  the  inmost  springs  of  human  action  and 
emotion;  have  tracked  with  so  much  subtilty  the  windings 
of  guilty  self-deception,  or  so  found  the  secret  sorrow  that 
lies  at  the  core  of  every  unconsecrated  joy.  If  we  must  con- 
cede to  the  Roman  Catholic  casuists  and  the  problems  of  the 
confessional  the  merit  of  creating  an  ethical  Art  embodied  in 
systems  of  rules,  we  owe  to  the  deeper  Evangelical  spirit, 
whether  in  its  action  or  its  reaction,  the  ground-lines  of  an  eth- 
ical Philosophy ;  —  or,  if  you  deny  that  such  a  thing  as  yet 
exists,  at  least  the  true  idea  and  undying  quest  of  it.  The 
disciples  of  Augustine,  belonging  to  an  anthropological  school, 
have  been  naturally  distinguished  by  a  reflective  and  psycho- 
logic habit. 

If  it  was  the  function  of  the  Greek  period  to  settle  the  doc- 
trine of  God,  and  of  its  Latin  successor  to  define  the  nature 
of  man,  it  was  the  aim  of  the  Reformation,  leaving  these  two 
extremes  undisturbed,  to  find  the  way  of  mediation  between 
them.  So  long  as  the  great  sacerdotal  Church,  living  continu- 
ator  of  Christ's  presence,  was  intrusted  with  the  business,  pri- 
vate Christians  wanted  no  theory  on  the  subject ;  all  nice 
questions  went  into  the  ecclesiastical  closet  and  disappeared. 
But  as  soon  as  ever  the  hierarchy  fell  out  of  this  position, 
there  was  an  immense  void  left  to  be  filled.  On  the  one 
hand,  Infinite  Holiness,  quite  alienated ;  on  the  other,  Human 
Pravity,  quite  helpless:  how  was  any  approximation  to  be 
rendered  conceivable  ?  True,  the  great  original  Mediation  on 
Calvary,  which  the  papal  priesthood  pretended  to  prolong,  re- 
mained ;  for  it  was  fixed  in  history.  But  it  lay  a  great  way 
oif,  a  fact  in  the  old  past ;  and  its  intervention  was  required 
to-day  by  Melancthon,  and  Carlstadt,  and  a  whole  generation 
quite  remote  from  it.  How  was  its  power  to  be  fetched  into 
the  present?  how  applied  to  men  walking  about  in  "Witten- 
berg or  Ziirich  ?  This  was  the  problem  which  flew  open  by 
the  cancelling  of  the  Romish  credentials :  and  the  various  an- 
swers to  it  constitute  the  body  of  Protestant  theology.  In 


MEDIATORIAL   RELIGION.  151 

one  point  they  all  agree,  that,  to  replace  the  priestly  media 
that  are  thrust  out,  Personal  Faith  is  the  element  that  must 
be  brought  in.  In  what  way  this  subjective  state  of  the  indi- 
vidual mind  draws  or  appropriates  the  efficacy  of  the  Incar- 
nation ;  in  what  order  the  redeeming  process  runs  among  the 
three  given  terms,  —  the  alienated  Father,  the  mediating  Son, 
the  believing  disciple;  whether  any  part  of  the  process  is 
moral  and  real,  or  all  is  legal  and  virtual ;  —  these  are  ques- 
tions which  the  Reformation  has  found  it  easier  to  open  than 
to  close.  But  answer  them  as  you  will,  they  entangle  your 
thoughts  in  the  mutual  relations  and  sentiments  of  three  per- 
sons ;  and  cannot  be  discussed  without  establishing  some  prin- 
ciples of  moral  psychology,  as  the  common  grounds  of  inter- 
communion between  minds  finite  and  infinite,  and  dealing  with 
hypothetical  problems  of  divine  as  well  as  human  casuistry. 
Hence  the  inevitable  tendency  of  the  doctrine  of  Mediation 
to  venture  on  a  natural  history  of  the  Divine  Mind,  —  to  con- 
struct a  drama  of  Providence  and  Grace,  with  plot  too  artful- 
ly wrought  for  the  free  hand  of  Heaven,  and  traits  too  spe- 
cific and  minute  for  reverent  contemplation. 

It  is  deeply  instructive  to  observe  the  pulsation  of  religious 
thought  in  men.  Revealed  religion  is  ever  passing  into  natu- 
ral, and  natural  returning  to  re-interpret  the  revealed.  We 
can  almost  see  the  steps  by  which  sacred  history  was  convert- 
ed into  dogma ;  while  dogma,  assumed  in  turn  as  the  starting- 
point,  is  ever  producing  new  readings  of  the  history.  This 
world  may  be  regarded  as  a  human  theatre,  where  the  Wills 
of  men  perform  the  parts ;  or  as  the  stage  of  Divine  agency, 
using  the  visible  actors  as  the  executants  of  an  invisible 
thought.  Its  vicissitudes,  presented  in  the  former  aspect, 
yield  only  history ;  in  the  latter,  give  rise  to  doctrine.  No- 
ticed by  Tacitus,  the  life  of  Christ  is  a  provincial  incident  of 
Tiberius's  reign,  and  his  death  a  judicial  act  of  Pontius  Pi- 
late's government.  In  the  three  first  Gospels  and  the  book  of 
Acts,  the  crucifixion  is  still  the  act  of  wicked  or  misguided 
men,  inflicted  on  an  expostulating  victim ;  not,  however,  with- 
out being  foreseen  as  the  appointed  precursor  of  a  resurrec- 


152  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

tion.  The  event  is  thus  in  the  main  simply  historical ;  but 
with  a  divine  comment  which  gives  it  an  incipient  theological 
significance.  It  appears  under  another  aspect  in  the  Gospel 
of  John ;  there,  Christ  not  only  foresaw,  but  determined  his 
own  death :  his  life  "  no  man  taketh  it  from  him,"  but  he  "  lays 
it  down  of  himself" ;  he  is  not  merely  the  submissive  medi- 
um, but  the  spontaneous  co-agent  of  a  Divine  intent.  Final- 
ly, in  St.  Paul,  —  to  whom  the  person  and  ministry  of  Christ 
were  unfamiliar,  who,  as  a  disciple  of  his  heavenly  life,  looked 
back  upon  them  from  a  higher  point,  —  the  historical  aspect 
almost  wholly  disappears  in  the  ideal ;  and  the  cross  becomes 
the  Gospel,  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  power  of  God,  the 
self-sacrifice  of  the  Son  the  reconciling  way  to  the  Father,  the 
very  focus  and  symbol  of  all  the  mystery  and  mercy  com- 
prised in  humanity.  The  movement  of  thought  through  these 
successive  stages  is  obvious.  An  event  is  at  first  accepted  as 
it  arises.  But  in  proportion  as  its  concrete  impression  retires, 
the  need  becomes  more  urgent  to  find  its  function :  instinctive 
search  is  made  for  all  those  elements,  accessories,  and  effects 
of  it,  which  promise  to  bring  out  its  meaning  and  idea,  until 
at  last  its  doctrine  absorbs  itself,  and  enters  the  human  mind 
as  a  permanent  factor  of  positive  religion.  It  is  thus  that 
the  great  antitheses,  of  Law  and  Gospel,  of  the  Natural  and 
the  Spiritual  man,  of  dead  Works  and  living  Faith,  of  self- 
seeking  enmity  and  self-surrendering  reconciliation  with  God, 
have  settled  upon  the  consciousness  of  Christendom,  and 
grown  into  the  very  substance  of  its  experience.  They  have 
become  part  of  its  natural  religion.  But  in  this  character 
they  may,  conversely,  be  taken  as  the  initiative  of  a  new  ver- 
sion of  the  history  whence  they  sprung.  They  could  not  be 
born  into  unmixed  and  formed  existence  at  once  ;  but,  like  all 
new  affections,  must  feel  their  way  out  of  an  early  indetermi- 
nate state,  into  clear  self-apprehension  and  settled  purity. 
The  testimony  of  the  Christian  conscience  needs  time  to  be- 
come articulate  and  collected.  The  shadow  of  human  guilt 
may  lie  so  dark  upon  the  mind,  the  dawn  of  the  divine  holi- 
ness may  so  dazzle  the  inward  vision,  that  blindness  in  part 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  153 

may  linger  for  a  while ;  and  the  eye,  in  very  opening  to 
Christ's  healing  touch,  may  fail  to  see.  Once  accustomed  to 
the  new  light  of  life,  men  are  no  longer  occupied  with  it  alone, 
but  find  in  it  a  medium  for  truer  discernment  of  objects 
around.  The  special  sentiments  awakened  by  the  Gospel  test 
themselves  afresh,  like  any  other  theory,  by  being  fully  lived 
out,  and  tried  as  experiments  upon  the  soul.  The  type  of 
character,  —  the  edition  of  human  nature,  —  in  which  they 
take  embodiment,  becomes  a  distinct  object  of  critical  appre- 
ciation ;  and  while  all  its  deep  expressive  traits  speak  for  the 
inner  truth  whence  they  are  moulded,  every  mixture  of  dis- 
harmony or  defect  calls  for  some  revision  of  idea.  In  the 
thirsty  spiritual  state  to  which  men  were  reduced  on  the  eve 
of  the  Reformation,  they  drank  up  with  intense  eagerness  the 
most  turbid  supplies  of  evangelical  doctrine.  With  purer 
health  and  finer  perception  they  become  aware  that  not  all 
was  water  of  life ;  and  that  coarse  notions  of  the  nature  of 
justice,  the  conditions  of  mercy,  and  the  measurement  of  sin, 
were  intermixed  and  must  become  mere  sediment.  Cleared 
of  these,  the  theory  is  taken  back  to  the  facts  of  revelation, 
and  so  washed  through  them,  that  they  may  also  emerge  as 
from  a  sprinkling  of  regeneration.  Through  such  re-baptism 
does  our  author,  furnished  with  a  purified  conception  of 
"  atonement,"  pass  the  history  of  Christ. 

In  looking  for  the  whereabouts  of  the  atonement,  we  are 
guided,  as  in  search  for  the  pole-star,  by  two  pointers  whose 
indications  we  are  to  follow.  Its  function  was  double,  —  to 
cancel  a  guilty  past,  to  make  a  holy  future  :  and  it  must  be 
of  such  a  nature  as  to  disappoint  neither  of  these  conditions. 
In  determining  its  form,  the  great  anxiety  of  theologians  hith- 
erto has  been  to  fit  it  for  its  retrospective  action,  and  disembar- 
rass the  problem  of  salvation  of  the  burden  of  accumulated 
sin.  It  is  Mr.  Campbell's  distinction  that  he  lays  the  superior 
stress  on  its  prospective  action,  and  requires  that  it  shall  pos- 
itively heal  the  sickness  of  our  nature,  and  evolve  thence  a 
real  and  living  righteousness.  God's  moral  perfectness  could 
be  satisfied  with  nothing  less.  If,  indeed,  He  looked  on  our 


154  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

guilt  merely  as  an  obstacle  to  our  "  salvation,"  and  desired  to 
remove  it  as  a  hinderance  out  of  the  way,  —  if  He  rather 
sought  a  pretext  for  making  us  happy  than  a  provision  for 
drawing  us  to  goodness,  —  then  the  work  of  Christ  might  be 
so  devised  as  simply  to  tear  out  the  denied  page  of  the  past, 
and  register  an  infinite  credit  not  our  own,  without  inherent 
care  for  ulterior  personal  holiness.  But  were  it  so,  the  divine 
love  would  amount  only  to  an  unrighteous  desire  for  our  hap- 
piness, and  the  divine  righteousness  to  an  unloving  repulsion 
from  our  sin.  Such  spurious  analysis  corresponds  with  no 
reality ;  and  in  the  truth  of  things  there  can  be  no  heavenly 
affection  that  is  not  holy,  nor  any  holiness  that  is  not  affec- 
tionate. 

"  While  in  reference  to  the  not  uncommon  way  of  regard- 
ing this  subject  which  represents  righteousness  and  holiness 
as  opposed  to  the  sinner's  salvation,  and  mercy  and  love  as  on 
his  side,  I  freely  concede  that  all  the  Divine  attributes  were, 
in  one  view,  against,  the  sinner,  in  that  they  called  for  the  due 
expression  of  God's  wrath  against  sin  in  the  history  of  re- 
demption :  I  believe,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  justice,  the 
righteousness,  the  holiness  of  God,  have  an  aspect  according 
to  which  they,  as  well  as  his  mercy,  appear  as  intercessors  for 
man,  and  crave  his  salvation.  Justice  may  be  contemplated 
as  according  to  sin  its  due  ;  and  there  is  in  righteousness,  as 
we  are  conscious  to  it,  what  testifies  that  sin  should  be  miser- 
able. But  justice,  looking  at  the  sinner  not  simply  as  the  fit 
subject  of  punishment,  but  as  existing  in  a  moral  condition  of 
unrighteousness,  and  so  its  own  opposite,  must  desire  that  the 
sinner  should  cease  to  be  in  that  condition ;  should  cease  to  be 
unrighteous,  should  become  righteous :  righteousness  in  God 
craving  for  righteousness  in  man,  with  a  craving  which  the 
realization  of  righteousness  in  man  alone  can  satisfy.  So  also 
of  holiness.  In  one  view  it  repels  the  sinner,  and  would  ban- 
ish him  to  outer  darkness,  because  of  its  repugnance  to  sin. 
In  another,  it  is  pained  by  the  continued  existence  of  sin  and 
unholiness,  and  must  desire  that  the  sinner  should  cease  to  be 
sinful.  So  that  the  sinner,  conceived  of  as  awakening  to  the 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  155 

consciousness  of  his  own  evil  state,  and  saying  to  himself,  '  By 
sin  I  have  destroyed  myself.  Is  there  yet  hope  for  me  in 
God  ? '  —  should  hear  an  encouraging  answer,  not  only  from 
the  love  and  mercy  of  God,  but  also  from  his  very  righteous- 
ness and  holiness.  We  must  not  forget,  in  considering  the 
response  that  is  in  conscience  to  the  charge  of  sin  and  guilt, 
that,  though  the  fears  which  accompany  that  response  are 
partly  the  effect  of  a  dawning  of  light,  they  also  in  part  arise 
from  remaining  darkness.  He  who  is  able  to  interpret  the 
voice  of  God  within  him  truly,  and  with  full  spiritual  intelli- 
gence will  be  found  saying,  not  only,  '  There  is  to  me  cause 
for  fear  in  the  righteousness  and  holiness  of  God,'  but  also, 
'  There  is  room  for  hope  for  me  in  the  Divine  righteousness 
and  holiness.'  And  when  gathering  consolation  from  the  med- 
itation of  the  name  of  the  Lord,  that  consolation  will  be  not 
only,  '  Surely  the  Divine  mercy  desires  to  see  me  happy  rath- 
er than  miserable,'  but  also,  '  Surely  the'  Divine  righteousness 
desires  to  see  me  righteous,  —  the  Divine  holiness  desires  to 
see  me  holy,  —  my  continuing  unrighteous  and  unholy  is  as 
grieving  to  God's  righteousness  and  holiness  as  my  misery 
through  sin  is  to  his  pity  and  love.'  '  Good  and  righteous  is 
the  Lord,  therefore  will  he  teach  sinners  the  way  which  they 
should  choose.'  '  A  just  God  and  a  Saviour ' ;  not  as  the 
harmony  of  a  seeming  opposition,  but  '  a  Saviour,  because  a 
just  God.'  "  —  p.  29. 

From  this  justly-conceived  passage  the  characteristics  of 
Mr.  Campbell's  theory  may  already  be  divined.  He  sets  his 
faith  on  a  concrete,  living,  indivisible  God,  whom  you  can 
never  understand  by  laying  out  His  abstract  attributes  one  by 
one,  with  their  separate  requirements,  and  then  putting  them 
together  again  to  compute  the  resultant.  He  insists  on  the 
absolute  dominance  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  idea  throughout 
the  revealed  economy  :  of  this  nature  is  the  evil  to  be  met,  — 
sin  and  estrangement ;  of  this  nature  is  the  good  to  be  reached, 
—  righteousness  and  reconciliation ;  and  only  of  this  nature 
can  be  the  mediation  which  effects  the  change ;  related  up- 
ward to  the  Father  and  downward  to  men,  in  a  way  accordant 


156  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

with  the  laws  of  conscience,  and  intelligible  by  its  self-light. 
He  craves,  therefore,  a  natural  juncture,  a  real  causal  nexus, 
between  the  several  parts  of  the  process,  to  the  exclusion  of 
all  forensic  fictions  and  arbitrary  scene-shifting  and  sovereign 
tours-de-force.  In  short,  he  will  have  no  tricks  passed  off,  no 
^Mtm'-transformations  upon  the  conscience  ;  he  feels  the  moral, 
world  to  be  above  the  range  of  mere  miracle  ;  any  change  in 
it  irreducible  to  its  solemn  laws  would  ipso  facto  fall  out  of 
it  and  become  a  mere  dynamical  surprise.  Of  physical  mir- 
acle our  author  avails  himself  to  the  full  amount ;  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Son  of  God  being,  with  him,  as  with  others,  the 
central  fact  and  essential  medium  of  Christian  redemption. 
But  the  august  power  thus  supernaturally  set  up  —  the  Per- 
son at  once  divine  and  human  —  works  out  his  great  problem 
naturally,  without  requiring  the  suspension  of  one  rule  of 
right,  or  holding  any  magical  dealings  with  the  character  of  God 
or  man.  His  problem,  therefore,  is  to  show  how  the  life  and 
death  of  Christ  —  considered  as  God  in  humanity  —  were  fit- 
ted, and  alone  fitted,  to  blot  out  the  sins  of  the  world  before 
God,  and  to  introduce  among  men  a  new  state  of  real  right- 
eousness and  eternal  life. 

The  common  Evangelical  scheme  of  redemption  so  far  af- 
fects to  be  deduced  from  certain  general  principles,  and  to 
render  the  way  of  redemption  conceivable,  that  it  is  stigma- 
tized as  rationalistic  by  Catholics  and  Anglicans.  It  is  so, 
however,  only  in  the  sense  of  hanging  well  together,  and 
serving  the  purpose  of  a  theological  Mnemonic  to  those  who 
want  a  religion  ready  more  than  deep.  In  the  higher  sense, 
of  occupying  any  natural  ground  of  reason,  it  does  not  earn 
its  reproach.  The  propositions  which  it  lays  down,  as  to  the 
inability  of  a  holy  nature  to  forgive  unless  circuitously  and 
with  compensation,  and  as  to  the  commutability  of  either  pe- 
nal liabilities  or  moral  attributes,  are  without  any  support  from 
our  primary  sentiments  of  right  and  wrong,  and  could  be  car- 
ried out  by  no  sane  man  in  the  conduct  of  life.  The  doctrine 
is  taught  in  two  principal  forms  ; — the  earlier  and  more  ex- 
act scheme  of  "  Satisfaction"  elaborated  by  Anselm  of  Can- 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  157 

terbury,  and  perfected  by  Owen  and  Edwards ;  and  the  mod- 
ern theory  of  "  Public  Justice"  maintained  in  the  writings  of 
Dr.  Pye  Smith  and  Dr.  Payne,  and  prevailing  wherever  the 
first  decadence  from  the  old  Calvinism  is  going  on.  The  first 
of  these  prepares  its  ground  by  laying  down  these  principles 
as  fundamental ;  —  that  the  connection  between  sin  and  suf- 
fering is  inviolably  secured  on  the  veracity  of  God ;  that 
"  when  we  have  done  all,  we  are  unprofitable  servants,"  and 
have  only  rendered  our  strict  due ;  that,  far  from  "  doing  all," 
we  have  done  and  can  do  nothing,  except  accumulate  guilt, 
which,  measure  it  as  you  will,  —  by  the  majesty  of  the  au- 
thority defied,  or  the  multitude  of  the  offenders  and  their  sins, 
—  is  practically  of  infinite  amount.  Here,  then,  is  a  case  of 
utter  despair :  infinite  debt ;  nothing  to  pay ;  remission  impos- 
sible ;  punishment  eternal ;  death  unattainable.  But  we  are 
brought  into  the  labyrinth  on  one  side,  to  emerge  from  it 
on  the  other.  While  men  can  only  multiply  demerit,  there 
are  natures  conceivable  to  which  merit  is  possible.  A  Divine 
Person,  laying  aside  a  blessedness  inherently  his,  and  assum- 
ing sorrow  not  his  own,  and  doing  this  out  of  a  pure  love,  ful- 
fils the  conditions ;  and  when  the  Son  takes  on  him  our 
humanity,  the  act,  carried  out  unto  the  end,  has  a  merit  in  it 
which  in  amount  is  a  full  set-off  against  the  guilt  of  men. 
Still,  this  only  leaves  us  with  two  opposite  funds  —  of  infinite 
good  desert  and  infinite  ill  desert  —  which  sit  apart  and  unre- 
lated. In  due  course,  the  one  ought  to  have  a  boundless  re- 
ward, the  other  a  boundless  punishment.  But  to  render  his 
affluence  available  for  our  debt,  the  Son  consummates  his  self- 
sacrifice,  substitutes  himself  for  us  as  the  object  of  retribution, 
and  dies  once  for  all,  —  one  infinite  death  for  many  finite  here- 
afters of  woe.  The  Father's  justice  is  satisfied ;  the  allot- 
ment of  suffering  to  sin  has  been  accurately  observed ;  His 
desire  to  pardon  is  released  from  its  restraint.  Having  dealt 
with  the  person  of  the  Son  as  if  it  were  mankind,  He  may 
deal  with  mankind  as  if  they  were  the  Son,  and  look  upon 
them  as  clothed  with  a  perfect  obedience. 

The  wholly  artificial  structure  of  this  scheme,  which  is  its 
14 


158  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

greatest  condemnation,  has  been  its  chief  security.  It  is  by 
approaching  within  conducting-distance  of  reality,  that  a  doc- 
trine elicits  resistance  and  meets  the  stroke  of  natural  objec- 
tion ;  and  if  it  only  keeps  far  enough  aloft  in -the  metaphysic 
atmosphere,  it  may  float  along  unarrested  from  zone  to  zone 
of  time.  Men  know  not  what  to  make  of  propositions  so 
much  out  of  their  sphere,  so  evasive  of  any  real  encounter 
with  their  consciousness,  and  are  apt  to  let  them  pass  for  their 
very  strangeness'  sake.  But  surely  we  are  bound  to  demand 
for  them  some  "  response  of  conscience,"  and,  with  Mr.  Camp- 
bell, to  demur  to  such  of  them  as  will  not  bear  this  test.  Lim- 
iting ourselves  to  the  mediatorial  part  of  the  theory,  we  will 
assume  the  problem  of  moral  evil  to  be  correctly  stated,  and 
only  ask  whether,  from  the  supposed  case  of  despair,  the 
offered  solution  affords  any  real  exit  of  relief.  Nor  do  we 
assume  this  for  argument's  sake  alone.  We  can  perfectly 
understand  any  remorseful  sense,  however  deep,  of  human 
unworthiness ;  any  appreciative  reverence,  however  intense, 
of  Christ's  self-sacrifice.  Set  the  one  under  the  shadow  of 
the  Father's  infinite  disapproval,  the  other  in  the  light  of  His 
infinite  complacency ;  so  far  we  go ;  there  let  them  lie.  But 
what  next?  Here,  on  the  left  hand,  is  Sin  with  its  need  of 
punishment;  there,  on  the  right,  a  perfect  Holiness  with  its 
merits.  While  they  are  thus  spread  beneath  the  Father's 
eye,  they  break  up  their  inviolable  alliances;  each  moral 
cause  crosses  over  and  takes  the  opposite  effect.  If  such 
change  took  place,  the  seat  of  the  fact  must  be  sought  partly 
in  the  consciousness  of  Christ,  partly  in  the  Father's  view  of 
things.  In  reference  to  the  first,  must  we  say  that  the  Cruci- 
fied felt  himself  under  Divine  wrath  and  punishment,  and 
esteemed  that  wrath  to  be  just,  —  the  fitting  expression  of  his 
own  inward  remorse  ?  If  so,  can  we  affirm  that  his  conscious- 
ness was  veracious  ?  or  did  he  not  feel,  in  regard  to  others' 
sins,  sentiments  and  experiences  that  are  false  except  in  rela- 
tion to  one's  own  ?  And,  ascending  to  the  other  point  of  view, 
shall  we  affirm  that  the  Father  saw  sin  in  the  Son  and  was 
angry  with  him ;  so  that,  in  the  hour  of  sublimest  obedience, 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  159 

the  words  ceased  to  be  true,  "  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son,  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased"?  And  on  the  other  hand,  what  is 
meant  when  it  is  said  that  beneath  the  Divine  eye  men  in 
their  guilt  are  seen  "  clothed  with "  a  perfect  righteousness  ? 
Is  such  an  aspect  of  them  true  ?  or  is  it  akin  to  an  ocular  de- 
ception ?  Wie  seem  to  be  reduced  to  this  dilemma  ;  —  the 
change  of  apparent  moral  place  implied  in  "  imputation  "  is 
either  a  faithful  representation,  or  a  ^was^-representation,  of 
the  reality  of  things.  If  the  latter,  then  the  Divine  con- 
sciousness is  illusory,  and  the  world  is  administered  on  a  fic- 
tion ;  if  the  former,  then  the  moral  law,  in  assuring  us  of  the 
personal  and  inalienable  nature  of  sin,  gives  a  false  report, 
and  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  a  circulating  medium  of  merit 
from  passing  current  through  the  universe.  Mr.  Campbell's 
deference  for  the  great  advocates  of  this  marvellous  doctrine 
does  not  obstruct  his  perception  of  its  difficulties. 

"  I  freely  confess,"  he  says,  "  that  to  my  own  mind  it  is  a 
relief,  not  only  intellectually,  but  also  morally  and  spiritually, 
to  see  that  there  is  no  foundation  for  the  conceptions  that 
when  Christ  suffered  for  us,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  he  suffered 
either  'as  by  imputation  unjust,'  or  'as  if  he  were  unjust.' 
I  admit  that  intellectually  it  is  a  relief  not  to  be  called  to  con- 
ceive to  myself  a  double  consciousness,  both  in  the  Father 
and  in  the  Son,  such  as  seems  implied  in  the  Father's  seeing 
the  Son  at  one  and  the  same  time,  though  it  were  but  for  a 
moment,  as  the  well-beloved  Son,  to  whom  infinite  favor  should 
go  forth,  and  also  as  worthy,  in  respect  of  the  imputation 
of  our  sins  to  him,  of  being  the  object  of  infinite  wrath,  he 
being  the  object  of  such  wrath  accordingly ;  and  in  the  Son's 
knowing  himself  the  well-beloved  of  the  Father,  and  yet 
having  the  consciousness  of  being  personally,  through  impu- 
tation of  our  sin,  the  object  of  the  Father's  wrath.  I  feel  it 
intellectually  a  relief  neither  to  be  called  to  conceive  this,  nor 
to  assume  it  as  an  unconceived  mystery.  Still  more  do  I  feel 
it  morally  and  spiritually  a  relief,  not  to  be  reqnired  to  recog- 
nize legal  fictions  as  having  a  place  in  this  high  region,  in 
which  the  awful  realities  of  sin  and  holiness,  spiritual  death 


160  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

and  spiritual  life,  are  the  objects  of  a  transaction  between  the 
Father  and  the  Son  in  the  Eternal  Spirit."  —  p.  310. 

The  second  form  of  mediatorial  doctrine,  to  which  we  have 
referred  as  the  modem  type  of  Calvinism,  has  arisen  from  the 
endeavor  to  evade  some  of  these  perplexities.  The  riddle 
that  haunts  its  teachers  is  still  the  same,  —  how  it  can  become 
possible  to  show  mercy  to  sinners ;  but  the  difficulty  in  the 
way  is  differently  conceived,  and  therefore  met  by  a  different 
expedient.  It  is  not  an  obstacle  in  God,  arising  from  his  per- 
sonal sentiment  of  equity,  which  must  be  satisfied ;  but  springs 
out  of  the  necessity  of  consistent  rectitude,  and  adherence  to 
law  in  his  administrative  government.  The  Father  himself, 
it  is  intimated,  would  be  quite  willing  to  forgive,  were  there 
nothing  to  consult  except  his  own  disposition.  But  it  would 
never  do  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  the  criminal  law  of  the 
universe,  and,  notwithstanding  the  most  solemn  enactments, 
let  off  delinquents  on  mere  repentance,  as  if  nothing  were  the 
matter  beyond  a  personal  affront.  Something  more  is  due  to 
Public  Justice.  If  the  due  course  of  retribution  is  to  be 
turned  aside,  it  must  be  in  such  a  way  and  at  such  a  cost  as 
to  proclaim  aloud  the  awfulness  of  the  guilt  remitted.  This, 
we  are  told,  is  accomplished  by  the  sufferings  and  death  of  the 
Son  of  God,  which  were  substituted  for  our  threatened  pun- 
ishment, not  as  its  quantitative  equal  paid  to  the  Father,  but 
as  a  moral  equivalent  in  the  eyes  of  men.  Their  validity  is 
thus  conceived  to  depend  by  no  means  on  their  particular 
measure,  but  on  the  meritorious  obedience  of  love  which  was 
their  sustaining  and  animating  soul,  and  which,  being  on  the 
scale  of  a  Divine  nature,  gave  infinite  value  to  the  smallest 
sorrow.  Within  the  casket  of  his  grief  was  held  such  a  price- 
less righteousness,  that,  on  beholding  it,  the  Father  might  re- 
gard it  as  an  adequate  plea  for  acts  of  mercy  to  sinners.  He 
does  not  indeed  impute  to  them  the  actual  moral  perfectness 
of  Christ,  so  as  to  see  them  invested  with  it,  any  more  than 
he  imputed  to  Christ  their  guilt,  and  frowned  on  Calvary.  It 
is  the  effects  only  of  that  holiness  which  he  imputes ;  he  offers 
to  men  the  benefits  of  it,  without  reckoning  it  as  really  theirs, 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  161 

and  giving  them  the  legal  standing  which  its  possession  would 
bestow. 

No  doubt  this  scheme  gets  rid  of  the  penal  mensuration  and 
moral  conveyancing  of  the  older  Calvinism.  It  shifts  also  the 
bar  to  free  mercy  away  from  the  inner  personality  of  God, 
and  sets  it  in  his  outer  government.  But  when  we  again  at- 
tempt to  seize  the  mediatorial  expedient,  what  is  it?  It  is 
said  to  be  a  display  of  the  enormity  of  that  guilt  which  needs 
to  be  redeemed  at  such  a  cost.  But  is  that  need  real?  Have 
we  not  been  told  that  it  has  no  place  in  God  ?  Does  he  then 
hang  out  a  profession  that  is  not  true  to  the  kernel  of  things, 
but  only  a  show-off  for  impression's  sake  ?  If  Eternal  Justice 
in  its  inner  essence  does  not  require  the  expiation  provided, 
why  hi  its  outer  manifestation  pretend  that  it  does?  As 
nothing  can  become  right  for  "  the  sake  of  good  example " 
that  is  not  right  in  itself,  so  is  "  Public  Justice,"  unsustained 
by  the  sincere  heart  of  reality,  a  mere  dramatic  imposture. 
Mr.  Campbell  has  supplied  us  with  a  forcible  statement  of 
this  truth:  — 

"  Surely  rectoral  or  public  justice,  if  it  is  to  have  any  moral 
basis,  —  any  basis  other  than  expediency,  —  must  rest  upon, 
and  refer  to,  distributive  or  absolute  justice.  In  other  words, 
unless  there  be  a  Tightness  in  connecting  sin  with  misery,  and 
righteousness  with  blessedness,  looking  at  individual  cases 
simply  in  themselves,  I  cannot  see  that  there  is  a  Tightness  in 
connecting  them  as  a  rule  of  moral  government.  '  An  English 
judge  once  said  to  a  criminal  before  him :  You  are  condemned 
to  be  transported,  not  because  you  have  stolen  these  goods, 
but  that  goods  may  not  be  stolen.'  (Jenkyns,  175,  176.)  This 
is  quoted  in  illustration  of  the  position,  that  'the  death  of 
Christ  is  an  honorable  ground  for  remitting  punishment,'  be- 
cause '  his  sufferings  answer  the  same  ends  as  the  punishment 
of  the  sinner.'  I  do  not  recognize  any  harmony  between  this 
sentiment  of  the  English  judge  and  the  voice  of  an  awakened 
conscience  on  the  subject  of  sin.  It  is  just  because  he  has 
sinned  and  deserves  punishment,  and  not  because  he  says  to 
himself  that  God  is  a  moral  governor,  and  must  punish  him 
14* 


162  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

to  deter  others,  that  the  wrath  of  God  against  sin  seems  so 
terrible,  —  and  as  just  as  terrible."  —  p.  79. 

Even  were  the  expression  backed  up  by  reality,  we  cannot 
but  ask  about  the  fitness  of  the  medium  for  the  thought  to  be 
conveyed.  God's  horror  at  guilt  is  publicly  proclaimed  by  the 
most  awful  crime  in  human  history  !  To  explain  the  difficulty 
of  letting  off  the  offender,  he  exhibits  the  anguish  of  the  inno- 
cent !  The  spectacle  would  seem  in  danger  of  suggesting  the 
wrong  lesson  to  the  terrified  observer,  —  of  raising  to  intensity 
the  doubt  whether,  in  a  world  that  gives  its  silver  to  a  Judas, 
its  judgment-seat  to  a  Pilate,  and  the  cross  to  the  Son  of  God, 
any  Providence  can  care  for  rectitude  at  all.  Even  when 
the  death  of  Christ  is  contemplated  exclusively  as  a  self-sac- 
rifice, without  remembering  the  guilt  which  compassed  it,  we 
are  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  it  could  be  "  an  honorable 
ground  for  remitting  punishment."  What  difference  did  it 
make  in  the  previous  reasons  of  the  Divine  government,  so 
that  penalties  right  before  should  be  less  right  afterwards? 
If  Catiline  were  undergoing  his  just  retribution  at  the  date 
of  the  Last  Supper,  what  plea  was  there  for  releasing  him  at 
or  -before  the  date  of  the  resurrection  ?  That  obedience  ren- 
dered and  suffering  endured  by  one  soul  should  dispense  with 
the  liabilities  of  another,  is  a  supposition  at  variance  with  the 
personal  and  inalienable  nature  of  all  sin ;  and  to  say  that 
God  "  imputes  the  effects "  of  Christ's  holiness  to  those  who 
are  not  partakers  in  the  cause,  is  to  accuse  the  Divine  gov- 
ernment of  total  disregard  to  character  and  evasion  of  moral 
reality.  The  old  Calvinism  represents  the  Father  as  having 
an  illusory  perception  of  men,  as  if  they  were  clad  in  a  divine 
righteousness.  The  new  Calvinism  represents  him  as  having 
indeed  a  true  perception  of  their  unrighteousness,  but,  notwith- 
standing this,  falsifying  the  truth  in  action,  and  proceeding  as 
if  the  facts  were  quite  other  than  they  are.  Inasmuch  as  un- 
veracious  vision  is  intellectual,  while  unveracious  practice  is 
moral,  the  younger  doctrine  appears  to  us  a  positive  degrada- 
tion of  the  elder,  not  only  in  logical  completeness,  but  in  re- 
ligious worth.  Both  of  them  make  the  redeeming  economy 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  163 

proceed  upon  a  fiction  ;  but  there  is  all  the  difference  between 
unconscious  and  conscious  fiction ;  between  an  inner  "  satis- 
faction" brought  about  by  an  optical  displacement  of  merit, 
and  an  outward  "  exhibition "  set  up  for  the  sake  of  impres- 
sion. The  theory  of  Owen,  stern  as  it  is,  bears  the  stamp  of 
resolute  meaning  consistently  carried  through  into  the  inmost 
recess  of  the  Divine  nature.  The  newer  doctrine  is  the  pro- 
duction of  a  platform  age,  which  obtrudes  considerations  of 
effect  even  into  its  thoughts  of  God  and  his  government,  and 
can  scarce  refrain  from  turning  the  universe  itself  into  a  thea- 
tre for  rhetorical  pathos  and  ad  captandum  display. 

With  good  reason,  therefore,  does  our  author  feel  that  this 
whole  subject  is  in  need  of  reconsideration.  His  own  doctrine 
diverges  from  its  predecessors  at  a  very  early  point,  and  is 
seen  at  its  source  in  the  following  proposition  of  Edwards,  as 
cited  by  Mr.  Campbell :  — 

"  In  contending  that  sin  must  be  punished  with  an  infinite 
punishment,  President  Edwards  says,  '  that  God  could  not  be 
just  to  himself  without  this  vindication,  unless  there  could  be 
such  a  thing  as  a  repentance,  humiliation,  and  sorrow  for  this 
(viz.  sin)  proportionable  to  the  greatness  of  the  Majesty  de- 
spised,' —  for  that  there  must  needs  be  '  either  an  equivalent 
punishment,  or  an  equivalent  sorrow  and  repentance ' ; '  so,'  he 
proceeds, '  sin  must  be  punished  with  an  infinite  punishment ' ; 
thus  assuming  that  the  alternative  of  '  an  equivalent  sorrow 
and  repentance '  was  out  of  the  question.  But,  upon  the  as- 
sumption of  that  identification  of  himself  with  those  whom  he 
came  to  save,  on  the  part  of  the  Saviour,  which  is  the  founda- 
tion of  Edwards's  whole  system,  it  may  at  the  least  be  said, 
that  the  Mediator  had  the  two  alternatives  open  to  his  choice, 
—  either  to  endure  for  sinners  an  equivalent  punishment,  or 
to  experience  in  reference  to  their  sin,  and  present  to  God  on 
their  behalf,  an  adequate  sorrow  and  repentance.  Either  of 
these  courses  should  be  regarded  by  Edwards  as  equally  se- 
curing the  vindication  of  the  majesty  and  justice  of  God  in 
pardoning  sin."  —  p.  136. 

The  side  of  the  alternative  which  Edwards  abandoned,  our 


164  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

author  takes  up  and  follows  out.  The  work  of  Christ,  as  a 
ground  of  remission,  consisted  in  the  offering  on  behalf  of 
humanity  of  an  adequate  repentance.  Adequate  it  could  not 
have  been  but  for  his  Divine  nature ;  which  attaches  to  his 
holy  sorrow  an  infinite  moral  value,  to  balance  the  infinite 
heinousness  of  the  sin  deplored.  The  only  reason  why  hu- 
man penitence  does  not  in  itself  avail  to  restore,  lies  in  its  im- 
perfect purity  and  depth.  Through  the  cloud  of  evil,  and 
with  the  eye  of  self,  we  are  disqualified  for  true  discernment 
of  sin  as  it  is :  both  the  limits  of  a  finite  nature,  and  the  delu- 
sions of  a  tempted  and  fallen  one,  hinder  us  from  appreciat- 
ing the  measure  of  our  guilt  and  misery.  Even  when  our 
better  mind  reasserts  itself,  our  very  compunction  carries  in 
it  many  a  speck  of  ill,  and  our  repentance  needs  to  be  repent- 
ed of.  But  were  it  not  for  this,  there  would  be  "  more  aton- 
ing worth  in  one  tear  of  the  true  and  perfect  sorrow  which 
the  memory  of  the  past  would  awaken,"  "  than  in  endless  ages 
of  penal  woe."  It  is  not  the  inemcacy,  but  the  impossibility, 
of  due  penitence  that  constitutes  our  fatal  disability ;  to  be  re- 
lieved from  which  we  need  to  be  taken  out  of  ourselves,  to  be 
identified  with  a  perfect  spirit ;  our  humanity  must  cease  to 
be  human,  and  become  one  with  the  Divine  nature.  This  is 
precisely  the  condition  which  realized  itself  in  Christ.  As 
God  in  humanity,  he  had  perfect  sympathy  with  the  holiness 
of  one  sphere,  and  the  infirmities  of  the  other ;  he  saw  the 
whole  amount  of  the  world's  moral  estrangement,  not  only 
with  infinite  pity  for  its  misery,  but  with  infinite  horror  at  its 
guilt.  He  could  both  make  a  plenary  confession  for  us,  and 
respond  unreservedly  to  the  Father's  righteous  judgment; 
could  bear  our  burden  on  his  heart  before  heaven,  and  utter 
the  Miserere  of  holy  sorrow,  which  our  most  plaintive  cry  can 
never  approach.  This  is  the  true  nature  of  his  sufferings. 
He  "  made  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin,"  yielded  it  up  to  be 
filled  with  a  sense  of  our  real  aspect  beneath  the  Omniscient 
eye,  and  an  Amen  to  its  condemning  look.  Hence  his  sor- 
rows had  nothing  penal  in  them,  any  more  than  the  tears  of  a 
devout  parent  over  a  prodigal  child  are  penal.  They  are 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  1G5 

incident  to  that  attitude  of  soul  which  a  perfect  nature  cannot 
but  have  in  the  presence  of  a  brother's  sin.  They  are  alto- 
gether moral  and  spiritual ;  and  their  efficacy  as  an  expiation 
is  that  of  true  repentance ;  expressing  at  once  our  entire  con- 
fession, acceptance  of  the  Father's  just  displeasure,  and  sym- 
pathy with  his  compassionate  grieving  at  our  alienation. 

At  the  same  time,  this  mere  retrospective  confession  would 
not  of  itself  avail,  were  there  no  better  hope  for  the  future  of 
mankind.  But  our  Mediator's  own  experience  in  humanity, 
his  consciousness  of  intimate  peace  and  communion  with  the 
Father,  opened  to  him  the  other  side  of  our  nature,  assured 
him  of  its  secret  capacity  for  good,  and  filled  him  with  hope 
in  the  very  moment  of  contrition.  As  his  sympathy  could 
have  fellowship  with  our  temptations,  so  could  ours  have  fel- 
lowship with  his  righteousness ;  and  the  light  of  Divine  love 
that  rested  actually  on  himself  was  thereby  a  possibility  for 
the  universal  human  soul,  and  was  already  hovering  round 
with  longing  to  descend.  It  was  on  the  strength  of  this  as- 
surance that  his  intercession  on  our  behalf  was  presented ;  it 
would  never  have  pleaded  for  indemnity  in  relation  to  the 
past,  but  as  the  prelude  to  a  real  righteousness,  a  true  partner- 
ship in  his  life  of  filial  harmony  with  God.  The  validity  of 
his  transaction  on  our  behalf  consisted  in  its  perfect  seizure 
of  the  whole  reality,  its  entire  "  response  to  the  mind  of  the 
Father  in  relation  to  men " ;  sorrow  for  their  estrangement, 
conviction  of  their  possible  return,  and  desire  to  draw  them 
into  the  spirit  of  genuine  Sonship. 

It  was  needful,  then,  —  so  we  conceive  our  author's  mean- 
ing, —  that  the  sentiments  of  God  towards  the  world's  sin  and 
misery  should  quit  their  absolute  position,  and  should  come 
and  take  their  station  in  humanity ;  and  from  that  field  should 
turn  their  gaze  and  expression  upward  to  meet  the  Father's 
downward  and  accordant  look.  As  this  "  Amen  of  the  Son 
to  the  mind  of  the  Father"  constitutes  the  essence  of  the 
atonement  on  the  Divine  side,  so  docs  it  consist  on  the  human 
side  in  "  the  Amen  of  each  individual  soul  to  the  Amen  of 
the  Son."  The  reproduction  in  us  of  the  filial  spirit  of 


166  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

Christ,  —  his  confession,  his  pleading,  his  trust, -—is  our  fel- 
lowship with  him  and  reconciliation  with  God. 

"  This  is  saving  faith,  —  true  righteousness,  —  being  the 
living  action,  and  true  and  right  movement  of  the  spirit  of  the 
individual  man  in  the  light  of  eternal  life.  And  the  certainty 
that  God  has  accepted  that  perfect  and  divine  Amen  as  ut- 
tered by  Christ  in  humanity  is  necessarily  accompanied  by 
the  peaceful  assurance  that,  in  uttering,  in  whatever  feeble- 
ness, a  true  Amen  to  that  high  Amen,  the  individual  who  is 
yielding  himself  to  the  spirit  of  Christ  to  have  it  uttered  in 
him  is  accepted  of  God.  This  Amen  in  man  is  the  due 
response  to  that  word,  '  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God ' ;  for  the 
gracious  and  Gospel  character  of  which  word,  as  the  tenderest 
pleading  that  can  be  addressed  to  the  most  sin-burdened  spirit, 
I  have  contended  above.  This  Amen  is  sonship  ;  for  the  Gos- 
pel call,  '  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God,'  when  heard  in  the  light 
of  the  knowledge  that  '  God  made  him  to  be  sin  for  us  who 
knew  no  sin,  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God 
in  him,'  is  understood  to  be  the  call  to  each  one  of  us  on  the 
part  of  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  '  My  son,  give  me  thine 
heart,'  addressed  to  us  on  the  ground  of  that  work  by  which 
the  Son  had  declared  the  Father's  name,  that  the  love  where- 
with the  Father  hath  loved  him  may  be  in  us,  and  he  in  us. 
In  the  light  itself  of  that  Amen  to  the  mind  of  the  Father  in 
relation  to  man  which  shines  to  us  in  the  atonement,  we  see 
the  righteousness  of  God  in  accepting  the  atonement,  and  in 
that  same  light  the  Amen  of  the  individual  human  spirit  to 
that  divine  Amen  of  the  Son  of  God  is  seen  to  be  what  the 
Divine  righteousness  will  necessarily  acknowledge  as  the  end 
of  the  atonement  accomplished."  —  p.  225. 

In  this  view,  it  is  not  the  rescue  from  punishment,  not  any 
favorable  change  in  our  legal  standing,  not  any  imputed  right- 
eousness, that  Christ's  mediation  obtains,  but  a  real  transfor- 
mation of  soul  and  character  through  the  divine  infection  and 
infusion  of  his  own  filial  spirit.  Only  in  so  far  as  his  mind 
thus  spreads  to  us  are  we  united  to  him,  or  in  any  way  par- 
takers of  his  gift  of  life.  Personal  alienation  can  have  no 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  1G7 

reversal  but  in  personal  return ;  nor  can  anything  "  extra- 
neous to  the  nature  of  the  Divine  will  itself,  to  which  we  are 
to  be  reconciled,  have  part  in  reconciling  us  to  that  will." 
The  fear  of  hell  is  not  repentance  ;  the  assurance  of  heaven 
is  not  salvation;  nor  under  any  modification  can  the  desire 
of  safety,  or  the  consciousness  of  its  attainment,  constitute  the 
least  approach  to  holiness.  The  good  alone  can  touch  the 
springs  of  goodness  ;  and  the  divine  and  trustful  life  of  Christ 
must  speak  to  us  on  its  own  account,  and  win  us  by  its  own 
power,  or  not  at  all.  Not  that  it  acts  on  us  merely  in  the 
way  of  example.  We  do  not  so  stand  apart  from  him  in  our 
independent  individuality,  that  by  an  external  imitation  we 
can  copy  him,  and  become,  as  it  were,  each  another  Christ, 
repeating  in  ourselves  his  offering  of  propitiation.  He  is  the 
Vine,  of  which  we  are  the  branches.  Tke  sap  is  from  him, 
drawn  through  the  eternal  root  of  righteousness,  and  does  but 
flow  as  a  derived  life  into  us.  The  Son  of  God  is  not  a  mere 
historical  personage,  to  be  contemplated  at  a  distance  in  the 
past,  but  ever  with  us  in  the  power  of  an  endless  life ;  still 
succoring  us  when  we  are  tempted,  and  ministering  to  con- 
science a  present  help  and  peace.  It  is  not,  therefore,  by 
following  him,  but  by  abiding  in  him,  that  we  have  our  fel- 
lowship in  his  harmony  with  God. 

The  essence,  then,  of  the  scheme  of  redemption,  in  the 
view  of  our  author,  seems  to  be  this :  that  the  Divine  nature 
entered  humanity  to  open  the  Fatherliness  of  God  by  living 
the  life  of  perfect  Sonship ;  and  that,  having  awakened  that 
life  in  us  by  this  its  visible  realization,  he  sustains  it  by  the 
inner  presence  of  his  Spirit.  It  is  one  of  the  obvious  conse- 
quences of  this  doctrine,  that  no  exclusive  or  exceptional  value 
is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  death  of  Christ.  It  is  simply  the  final 
and  crowning  expression  of  the  same  filial  mind  which  is  the 
continuous  essence  of  his  whole  existence  upon  earth.  Nor 
does  the  theory  attach  importance  to  any  sufferings  of  Christ, 
as  such ;  but  only  as  media  and  measures  of  moral  expression. 
Had  men  sinned  as  spirits,  his  reconciling  work  would  not 
have  involved  death  at  all :  but  since  in  our  constitution  mor- 


168  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

tality  is  "  the  wages  of  sin,"  his  response  to  the  Divine  mind 
in  regard  to  sin  would  have  been  incomplete,  had  he  not 
honored  this  law  and  tasted  its  realization.  Not  to  lose  sight 
of  the  main  features  of  the  doctrine  in  pursuit  of  details,  we 
must  pass  without  notice  many  curious  and  subtle  thoughts  of 
our  author  on  this  part  of  his  subject.  Indeed,  everywhere 
the  reader  "who  has  patience  with  the  entangled  style  will  find 
deep  hints  and  delicate  turns  of  reflection.  But  we  must 
withdraw  to  a  little  distance  from  his  system,  and  endeavor  to 
look  at  it  as  a  whole ;  fixing  attention  especially  on  the  central 
point  of  all,  —  the  mediatorial  provision,  which  replaces  the 
penal  "  satisfaction  "  of  the  elder  Calvinism,  and  the  "  exhi- 
bition of  rectoral  justice  "  of  the  modern  divines. 

Instead  of  an  infinite  punishment  endured  or  represented, 
the  theory  offers  us  an  infinite  repentance  performed.  Repent- 
ance for  what  ?  —  for  human  sin.  Repentance  by  whom  ?  — 
by  Him  "  who  knew  no  sin."  Is  this  a  thing  that  can  be  ?  Is 
vicarious  contrition  at  all  more  conceivable  than  vicarious 
retribution?  It  is  surely  one  and  the  same  difficulty  that 
meets  them  both.  On  what  ground  is  the  transfer  of  either 
moral  qualities  or  their  effects  regarded  by  our  author  as 
impossible  ?  —  because  at  variance  with  our  consciousness  of 
the  personal  and  inalienable  nature  of  sin.  But  not  less  is 
this  truth  contradicted  when  we  say  that  the  guilt  may  be 
incurred  by  one  person,  and  the  availing  repentance  take 
place  in  another.  Nor  can  any  imagination  of  Christ's  state 
of  mind  identify  it  with  penitence.  Mr.  Campbell  himself 
describes  it  (p.  135)  as  having  "all  the  elements  of  a  perfect 
repentance  in  humanity  for  all  the  sin  of  man  —  a  perfect 
sorrow  —  a  perfect  contrition,  —  all  the  elements  of  such  a 
repentance,  and  that  in  absolute  perfection  —  all  —  excepting 
the  personal  consciousness  of  sin."  This  exception,  however, 
contains  just  the  essential  element  of  the  whole,  penitence 
without  any  personal  consciousness  of  sin  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms ;  and  the  requisition  of  the  Divine  law  is,  that  the  sinner 
shall  turn  from  the  evil  of  his  heart,  not  that  the  righteous 
shall  make  confession  for  him.  The  entire  moral  value  of 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  169 

contrition  belongs  to  it  as  the  sign  of  inner  change  of  char- 
acter from  prior  evil  to  succeeding  good  ;  and  it  admits  of  no 
transplantation  from  the  identical  personality  which  has  been 
the  seat  of  the  evil  and  is  the  candidate  for  the  good. 

Further,  it  seems  a  paradox  to  say,  with  our  author,  that 
true  repentance  is  impossible  to  man,  who  alone  needs  it ;  and 
can  be  realized  only  by  the  Son  of  God,  in  whom  there  is  no 
room  for  it.  It  would  indeed  be  a  hopeless  realm  to  live  in, 
which  should  annex  to  all  sins  both  an  imperative  demand 
and  an  absolute  disqualification  for  adequate  contrition,  and  first 
open  the  fountain  of  availing  tears  in  holy  natures  that  have 
none  to  shed.  It  is,  in  truth,  of  the  very  essence  of  repent- 
ance to  have  its  seat  in  mixed  and  imperfect  moral  beings  : 
and  our  author  lays  upon  it  quite  an  arbitrary  requisition, 
when  he  insists  that,  to  pass  as  adequate,  it  must  contain  a 
perfect  appreciation  of  the  sin  deplored,  —  a  view  of  it  coinci- 
dent with  that  of  God.  Under  such  an  aspect  as  this  it  could 
never  have  appeared  to  us,  though  we  had  remained  guiltless 
of  it,  and  recoiled  from  it :  and  we  can  hardly  be  required  to 
reach,  in  the  rebound  of  recovery,  a  point  beyond  the  station 
which  would  have  prevented  the  fall.  Many  errors  in  theol- 
ogy arise  from  applying  absolute  conceptions  to  relative  con- 
ditions, and  forgetting  that  religion,  as  realized  in  us,  is  a  life, 
a  movement,  a  progress,  and  not  an  ultimate  limit  of  perfec- 
tion. Repentance  is  a  transitional  state,  to  which  it  is  absurd 
to  apply  an  infinite  criterion :  it  is  a  change  from  the  worse  to 
the  better  mind,  and  cannot  need  the  resources  or  belong  to 
the  experience  of  the  best.  To  pronounce  it  impossible  to 
the  wandering  and  fallen,  and  make  it  the  exclusive  function 
of  the  All-holy,  implies  the  strangest  metamorphosis  of  its 
meaning. 

But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  could  a  paradox  so  violent  find 
favor  with  an  author  everywhere  intent  on  the  exclusion  of 
fiction  from  Christian  theology  ?  To  refer  a  moral  act  to 
the  wrong  personality,  to  toss  about  a  solemn  change  like 
penitence  between  guilty  and  innocent,  as  if  its  particular  seat 
were  a  matter  of  indifference,  is  so  serious  an  error,  that  it 
15 


170  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

could  never  enter  a  mind  like  Mr.  Campbell's,  unless  under 
some  plausible  disguise.  Can  we  find  the  shape  under  which 
it  has  recommended  itself  to  his  approval  ? 

The  sentiment  ascribed  to  the  Son  of  God  in  regard  to 
sin,  —  wanting  as  it  does  the  essential  penitential  element  of 
personal  compunction,  —  is  simple  sorrow  for  others'  guilt, 
founded  on  perfect  apprehension  of  its  nature.  But  this 
attitude  of  soul  in  him  awakens  the  conscience  of  his  disci- 
ples, and  is  reproduced  in  them  by  fellowship.  Spread  into 
their  consciousness,  it  is  no  longer  clear  of  the  immediate 
presence  of  sin,  but,  falling  in  with  it,  assumes  the  missing 
element,  and  becomes  repentance.  When  the  Christian  sense 
of  evil,  which  ever  partakes  of  true  contrition,  is  thus  contem- 
plated as  a  transmigration  of  the  Mediator's  own  spirit  into 
the  soul,  the  two  are  so  identified  in  thought,  that  what  is  true 
only  of  the  human  effect  is  referred  to  the  Divine  cause ;  and 
the  moral  sorrow  of  Christ  is  regarded  as  potentially  equiva- 
lent to  repentance,  because  that  is  actually  the  form  of  the 
corresponding  phenomenon  in  us.  If  this,  however,  explains 
our  author's  position,  it  hardly  justifies  it.  Intercession  for 
others  in  their  guilt  may  move  them  to  remorse  for  their  own, 
but  is  a  fact  of  quite  different  nature.  As  attributes  and  ex- 
pressions of  character,  the  two  phenomena  are  not  to  be  con- 
founded ;  and  'as  affecting  our  relation  to  God,  there  is  the 
obvious  and  admitted  distinction,  that  intercession  avails  not 
for  those  who  remain  impenitent,  and  would  not  be  needed  for 
the  spontaneously  penitent.  The  sorrowful  expostulations 
of  the  Son  of  God  have  only  so  far  a  reconciling  effect  as 
they  become  the  medium,  in  the  hearts  of  men,  of  an  awak- 
ened contrition,  aspiration,  and  faith.  We  cannot  conceive 
them  to  have  immediately  altered  —  as  repentance  does  — 
the  personal  relation  between  God  and  the  transgressors  of 
His  will ;  else  the  change  would  be  a  change  in  the  Divine 
sentiment  whilst  its  objects  still  remained  unchanged.  The 
effect  waits  for  its  development  in  souls  melted  and  renewed. 
And  thus  the  atoning  sorrow  of  Christ  becomes  simply  a 
provision  for  a  healing  penitence  in  men. 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  171 

The  ascription  of  "  repentance "  to  Christ  is  curious  in 
another  point  of  view.  It  arises  from  a  blending  together  of 
his  consciousness  and  his  disciples' ;  from  slurring  the  lines  of 
personality  between  them  ;  from  regarding  their  spiritual 
state  as  an  organic  extension  of  his,  and  his  as  the  vital  root 
of  theirs.  In  his  endeavor  to  recommend  it  to  us,  our  author 
instinctively  runs  into  abstract  expressions  in  speaking  of 
mankind  ;  fusing  down  concrete  men  into  "  humanity  "  ;  re- 
ferring to  the  Mediator  as  "  God  in  humanity  "  ;  and  so,  deal- 
ing with  our  nature  as  if  it  were  a  single  existence,  carrying 
or  turning  up  all  its  individuals  as  partial  phenomena  of  one 
essence.  On  the  other  hand,  in  our  endeavor  to  correct  his 
doctrine,  we  have  had  to  lay  stress  on  the  inalienable  and 
separate  character  of  all  particular  persons,  taken  one  by 
one ;  to  insist  on  the  solitude  of  each  responsible  agent,  and 
the  impassable  barriers  which  forbid  the  transference  of  moral 
attributes  from  mind  to  mind.  Which  of  these  two  modes  of 
conception  is  the  truer  ?  For  according  as  we  incline  to  the 
one  or  the  other,  —  according  as  we  treat  humanity  as  the 
organic  unit  of  which  individual  samples  of  mankind  are  nu- 
merical accidents,  or  take  each  man  as  an  integer,  of  which 
the  race  is  a  multiple,  —  shall  we  lean  towards  mediatorial 
or  towards  direct  religion.  We  are  firmly  convinced  that  no 
doctrine  of  mediation  —  in  the  strict  sense  implying  trans- 
actions with  God  on  behalf  of  men,  as  well  as  in  the  opposite 
direction  —  can  be  harmonized  with  the  modern  individual- 
ism ;  and  that  it  is  precisely  in  the  attempt  to  unite  these  in- 
compatibles,  that  the  forensic  fictions  to  which  Mr.  Campbell 
objects,  and  the  moral  fiction  in  his  own  theory  to  which  we 
object,  have  had  their  origin.  They  are  mere  artificial  devices 
to  compensate  the  loss  of  that  realistic  mode  of  conception  in 
which  alone  a  true  atoning  doctrine  can  rest  in  peace.  So 
long  as  you  contemplate  the  Redeemer  as  a  detached  person, 
not  less  insulated  in  his  integrity  of  being  than  angel  from 
archangel  or  from  man,  the  difficulty  will  remain  insuperable 
of  making  his  moral  acts  avail  for  other  human  individuals, 
unless  by  a  fictitious  transference,  against  which  conscience 


172  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

protests.  Punishment  by  substitute,  righteousness  by  deputy, 
vicarious  repentance,  are  notions  at  variance  with  the  funda- 
mental postulates  of  the  Moral  Sense :  and  in  the  attempt  to 
defend  them  we  are  liable  to  lose  the  solemn,  living,  face-to- 
face  reality  of  the  strife  within  us,  and  to  weave  around  us  a 
web  of  legal  and  formal  relations,  as  little  like  any  heart-felt 
veracity  as  a  chancery  decree  to  a  law  of  nature.  In  pro- 
portion as  the  soul  is  pierced  with  a  sharper  contrition,  and 
attains  a  deeper  and  clearer  insight  into  her  own  unfaithful  dis- 
order, will  the  inherent  impossibility  of  any  foreign  exchange 
of  righteousness  become  apparent,  and  the  desire  to  be  shielded 
from  punishment  will  pass  away  :  nor  is  the  conscience  truly 
awakened  which  does  not  rather  rush  into  the  arms  of  its  just 
anguish  than  start  back  and  fly  away.  And  the  more  you 
hold  up  to  view  the  holiness  of  Christ,  the  darker  will  the 
personal  past  appear  to  grow ;  for  self-reproach  will  say : 
"  Yes,  I  see  him  as  the  holy  Son  of  God ;  the  guiltier  am  I 
that  the  vision  did  not  keep  me  from  my  sin."  Talk  to  such 
a  one  of  Christ's  transactions  on  our  behalf,  as  "federal  head  " 
of  a  redeemed  people  ;  and  his  misery  will  take  no  notice  of 
the  cold  pretence,  unless  to  think,  "  Whatever  engagements 
he  made  for  me,  I  have  broken  them  all."  In  short,  while 
Christ  is  regarded  simply  as  an  historical  individual,  with  the 
chasm  of  an  incommunicable  personality  between  him  and  us, 
no  ingenuity  can  construct,  except  from  the  ruins  of  moral 
law,  any  other  bridge  of  mediation  than  the  suasion  of  natural 
reverence,  by  which  his  image  passes  into  the  heart  of  faith. 

It  is  otherwise  when  we  break  through  the  restraints  of  the 
modern  individualism,  and  strive  to  enter  into  that  literal 
identification  of  Christ  with  Christians  which  is  so  frequent 
with  St.  Paul.  If,  instead  of  saying  that  Christ  had  our 
human  nature,  we  could  put  our  thought  into  this  form,  — 
"He  was  (and  is)  our  human  nature,"  —  if  we  could  suppose 
our  type  of  being  not  merely  represented  in  him  as  a  sample, 
but  concentrated  in  him  as  a  whole,  —  we  should  read  its 
essentials  and  destination  in  his  biography :  his  predicates 
would  be  its  predicates :  and  in  his  sorrows  and  sanctity  it 


MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION.  173 

might  undergo  purification.  Humanity  thus  made  into  a 
person  would  then  be  the  corresponding  fact  to  Deity  em- 
bodied in  a  person  :  both  would  be  Incarnations,  —  essential 
Manhood  and  essential  Godhead,  —  co-present  in  the  same 
manifested  life.  In  the  ordinary  conception  of  the  doctrine 
of  two  natures,  Christ  is  represented,  we  believe,  as  a  man ; 
in  the  mode  of  thought  to  which  we  now  refer,  he  appears  as 
Man.  The  difficulties  which  arise  in  the  attempt  to  carry  out 
this  form  of  thinking  are  evident  enough,  even  to  those  who 
know  nothing  of  the  Parmenides  of  Plato.  Indeed,  they  are 
rendered  so  obtrusive  by  our  modern  habits  of  mind,  that 
even  a  momentary  seizure,  for  mere  purposes  of  interpreta- 
tion, of  that  older  intellectual  posture,  scarcely  remains  possi- 
ble to  us.  The  apprehension  of  it,  however,  is  indispensable 
to  one  who  would  appreciate  the  mediatorial  theology  of 
Christendom,  —  a  theology  which  never  could  have  sprung  up 
if  our  present  conceptualist  and  nominalist  notions  had  always 
prevailed,  and  which,  ever  since  their  ascendency  in  Europe, 
has  been  driven  to  deplorable  shifts  of  self-justification.  The 
parallel  between  the  first  and  second  Adam,  the  fall  and  the 
restoration,  the  death  incurred  and  the-  life  recovered,  acquire 
new  meaning  for  those  who  thus  think,  —  that  as  the  incidents 
of  Adam's  existence  become  generic  by  descent,  so  the  inci- 
dents of  Christ's  existence  are  generic  by  diffusion ;  that  if 
in  the  one  we  see  humanity  at  head-quarters  in  time,  in  the 
other  we  see  it  at  head-quarters  in  comprehension ;  so  that, 
like  an  atmosphere  which,  purified  at  nucleus,  has  the  taint 
drawn  off  from  its  margin,  our  nature  is  freed  from  its  sickli- 
ness  in  him.  It  becomes  intelligible  to  us  in  what  sense  we 
are  to  take  refuge  in  him  as  our  including  term,  to  find  in 
him  an  epitome  of  our  true  existence,  to  die  (even  to  have 
died)  with  him,  to  suffer  with  him,  to  be  risen  with  him,  to 
dwell  above  in  him.  On  the  assumption  of  such  a  union,  his 
life  ceases  to  be  an  individual  biography  ;  what  is  manifested 
in  him  personally,  becomes  true  of  us  universally  ;  and  it  is  as 
if  we  were  all  —  like  special  examples  in  a  general  rule,  or 
undeveloped  truths  in  a  parent  principle  —  virtually  present 
15* 


174  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

in  his  dealings  with  evil  and  with  God.  It  is  evident,  that  in 
this  view  his  mediation  has  no  chasm  to  cross,  no  foreign 
region  to  enter,  but  is  an  inseparable  predicate  of  his  own 
personal  acts.  The  facility  of  conception  afforded  by  this 
method  is  betrayed  by  Mr.  Campbell's  resort  to  an  analogous 
hypothesis  as  a  mere  illustrative  help  to  the  mind.  Witness 
the  following  striking  passage  :  — 

"  That  we  may  fully  realize  what  manner  of  equivalent  to 
the  dishonor  done  to  the  law  and  name  of  God  by  sin  an 
adequate  repentance  and  sorrow  for  sin  must  be,  and  how  far 
more  truly  than  any  penal  infliction  such  repentance  and  con- 
fession must  satisfy  Divine  justice,  let  us  suppose  that  all  the 
sin  of  humanity  has  been  committed  by  one  human  spirit,  on 
whom  is  accumulated  this  immeasurable  amount  of  guilt ;  and 
let  us  suppose  this  spirit,  loaded  with  all  this  guilt,  to  pass  out 
of  sin  into  holiness,  and  to  become  filled  with  the  light  of  God, 
becoming  perfectly  righteous  with  God's  own  righteousness,  — 
such  a  change,  were  such  a  change  possible,  would  imply  in 
the  spirit  so  changed  a  perfect  condemnation  of  the  past  of  its 
own  existence,  and  an  absolute  and  perfect  repentance,  a  con- 
fession of  its  sin  commensurate  with  its  evil.  If  the  sense  of 
personal  identity  remained,  it  must  be  so.  Now,  let  us  con- 
template this  repentance  with  reference  to  the  guilt  of  such  a 
spirit,  and  the  question  of  pardon  for  its  past  sin  and  admis- 
sion now  to  the  light  of  God's  favor.  Shall  this  repentance 
be  accepted  as  an  atonement,  and,  the  past  sin  being  thus  con- 
fessed, shall  the  Divine  favor  flow  out  on  that  present  perfect 
righteousness  which  thus  condemns  the  past,  or  shall  that 
repentance  be  declared  inadequate  ?  Shall  the  present  perfect 
righteousness  be  rejected  on  account  of  the  past  sin,  so  abso- 
lutely and  perfectly  repented  of?  and  shall  Divine  justice  still 
demand  adequate  punishment  for  the  past  sin,  and  refuse  to 
the  present  righteousness  adequate  acknowledgment,  —  the 
favor  which,  in  respect  of  its  own  nature,  belongs  to  it  ?  It 
appears  to  me  impossible  to  give  any  but  one  answer  to  these 
questions.  We  feel  that  such  a  repentance  as  we  are  suppos- 
ing would,  in  such  a  case,  be  the  true  and  proper  satisfaction 


MEDIATORIAL   RELIGION.  175 

to  offended  justice.  Now,  with  the  difference  of  personal 
identity,  the  case  I  have  supposed  is  the  actual  case  of  Christ, 
the  holy  one  of  God,  bearing  the  sins  of  all  men  on  his  spirit, 
—  in  Luther's  words,  '  the  one  sinner,'  —  and  meeting  the  cry 
of  these  sins  for  judgment,  and  the  wrath  due  to  them,  absorb- 
ing and  exhausting  that  Divine  wrath  in  that  adequate  con- 
fession and  perfect  response  on  the  part  of  man  which  was 
possible  only  to  the  infinite  and  eternal  righteousness  in  hu- 
manity." —  p.  143. 

The  case  which  our  author  here  presents  as  an  aid  to  the 
imagination  was  to  Luther  the  literal  reality ;  to  whom,  ac- 
cordingly, Christ  was  "  the  one  sinner,"  without  "  the  differ- 
ence of  personal  identity,"  which  is  here  so  innocently  slipped 
in,  as  if  it  were  of  no  consequence.  Christ,  in  the  Reformer's 
view,  was  humanity,  our  humanity ;  and  the  grand  function 
and  triumph  of  faith  is  to  feel  ourselves  included  in  him,  to 
merge  our  individuality,  sins  and  all,  in  his  comprehending 
manhood  and  atoning  obedience.  Hence  the  stress  which 
Luther  lays  on  "  the  well-applying  the  pronoun  "  our,  in  the 
phrase,  "  who  gave  himself  for  our  sins " ;  "  that  this  one 
syllable  being  believed  may  swallow  up  all  thy  sins."  The 
effect  of  this  realism  on  the  theology  of  Luther  has  not  been 
sufficiently  remarked.  We  believe  it  to  be  the  key  to  much 
that  is  obscure  in  his  writings,  and  the  secret  source  of  his 
antipathy  to  the  Calvinistic  type  of  the  Reformation.  Ab- 
sorption of  Manhood  into  Christ,  —  distribution  of  Godhead 
into  humanity,  —  these  were  the  correlative  parts  of  his  objec- 
tive belief,  —  Atonement  and  Eucharistic  Real  Presence  :  and 
neither  in  themselves  nor  in  their  correspondence  can  they  be 
appreciated,  without  standing  with  him  at  the  point  of  view 
which  we  have  endeavored  to  indicate. 

Whether  mediatorial  religion  shall  continue  to  include  in  its 
scheme  some  provision  for  dealing  with  God  on  behalf  of  men, 
will  mainly  depend  on  the  successful  revival  or  the  final  aban- 
donment of  the  old  realistic  modes  of  thought.  Mr.  Camp- 
bell's compromise  with  them,  taking  refuge  with  them  for 
illustration  while  disowning  them  in  substance,  answers  no 


176  MEDIATORIAL    RELIGION. 

logical  or  theological  purpose  at  all.  If  he  follows  out  the 
natural  tendencies  and  affinities  of  his  faith,  he  must  rest 
exclusively  at  last  in  the  other  half  of  the  doctrine,  which 
exhibits  the  dealing  with  man  on  behalf  of  God.  In  this  best 
sense  mediatorial  religion  is  imperishable,  and  imperishably 
identified  with  Christianity.  The  Son  of  God,  at  once  above 
our  life  and  in  our  life,  morally  divine  and  circumstantially 
human,  mediates  for  us  between  the  self  so  hard  to  escape, 
and  the  Infinite  so  hopeless  to  reach  ;  and  draws  us  out  of  our 
mournful  darkness  without  losing  us  in  excess  of  light.  He 
opens  to  us  the  moral  and  spiritual  mysteries  of  our  existence, 
appealing  to  a  consciousness  in  us  that  was  asleep  before. 
And  though  he  leaves  whole  worlds  of  thought  approachable 
only  by  silent  wonder,  yet  his  own  walk  of  heavenly  com- 
munion, his  words  of  grace  and  works  of  power,  his  strife  of 
divine  sorrow,  his  cross  of  self-sacrifice,  his  reappearance 
behind  the  veil  of  life  eternal,  fix  on  him  such  holy  trust  and 
love,  that,  where  we  are  denied  the  assurance  of  knowledge, 
we  attain  the  repose  of  faith. 


FIVE   POINTS   OF   CHRISTIAN   FAITH. 


IT  is  at  all  times  difficult,  even  for  the  wisest,  to  describe 
aright  the  tendencies  of  the  age  in  which  they  live,  and  lay 
down  its  bearings  on  the  great  chart  of  human  affairs.  Our 
own  sensations  can  give  us  no  notice  whither  we  are  going ; 
and  the  infinite  life-stream  on  which  we  ride,  restless  as  it  is 
with  the  surface-waves  of  innumerable  events,  reports  noth- 
ing of  the  mighty  current  that  sweeps  us  on,  except  by  faint 
and  silent  intimations,  legible  only  to  the  skilled  interpreter  of 
heaven.  It  is  something,  however,  to  have  the  feeling  that 
we  are  moving,  and  to  be  awake  and  looking  out ;  and  perhaps 
there  never  was  a  period  in  which  this  consciousness  was 
more  diffused  throughout  society  than  in  our  own.  No  one 
can  look  up  and  around  at  the  religious  and  social  phenomena 
of  Christendom,  without  the  persuasion  that  we  are  entering 
a  new  hemisphere  of  the  world's  history,  —  a  persuasion  cor- 
roborated even  by  those  who  disclaim  it,  and  who  insist  on 
still  steering  by  lights  of  tradition  now  sinking  into  the  mists 
of  the  receding  horizon.  Wherever  we  turn  our  eye,  we  dis- 
cover some  symptom  of  an  impending  revolution  in  the  forms 
of  Christian  faith.  The  gross  materialism  and  absolute  unbe- 
lief diffused  for  the  first  time  among  vast  masses  of  our  popu- 
lation ;  the  fast-spreading  (and,  as  it  appears  to  us,  morbid) 
dislike  to  look  steadily  at  anything  miraculous  ;  the  extensive 
renunciation,  even  among  the  religious  classes  on  the  Continent, 
of  historical  Christianity ;  the  schisms  and  ever-new  peculiar- 


178  FIVE    POINTS    OF    CIIUISTIAN    FAITH. 

ities  which  are  weakening  all  sects,  and,  like  seedlings  of  the 
Reformation,  are  obscuring  the  species,  by  multiplying  the  va- 
rieties, of  opinion ;  the  revived  controversies,  penetrating  all 
the  great  political  questions  of  the  age,  between  the  ecclesi- 
astical and  civil  powers,  —  are  not  the  only  indications  of 
approaching  theological  change.  That  very  conservatism 
and  recoil  upon  the  high  doctrine  of  an  elder  time,  which  is 
manifest  in  every  section  of  the  Christian  world,  is  a  confes- 
sion by  contrast  of  the  same  thing.  For  opinion  does  not 
turn  round  and  retreat  into  the  past,  till  it  has  lost  its  natural 
shelter  in  the  present,  and  dreads  some  merciless  storm  in  the 
future.  The  outward  strength  which  the  older  churches  of 
our  country  seem  to  be  acquiring  arises  from  the  rallying  of 
alarm  and  the  herding  together  of  trembling  sympathies ;  and 
though  fear  may  unite  men  against  external  assaults  upon  in- 
stitutions, it  cannot  stop  the  decay  of  inward  doubt.  It  would 
seem  as  if  Christianity  was  threatened  by  the  mental  activity 
which  it  has  itself  created;  as  if  the  intellectual  weapons 
which  have  been  forged  and  tempered  by  its  skill  were  treach- 
erously turned  against  its  life.  It  is  vain,  however,  to  strike 
a  power  that  is  immortal ;  nothing  will  fall  but  the  bodily 
form  cast  for  a  season  around  the  imperishable  spirit. 

Protestantism,  with  all  its  blessings,  has  after  all  greatly 
disfigured  Christianity,  by  constructing  it  into  a  rigid  meta- 
physical form,  and  setting  it  up  on  a  narrow  pedestal  of  anti- 
quarian proof;  —  by  destroying  its  infinite  character  through 
definitions,  and  developing  it  dogmatically  rather  than  spiritu- 
ally ;  —  by  treating  it,  not  as  an  ideal  glory  around  the  life  of 
man,  but  a  logical  incision  into  the  psychology  of  God.  The 
wreck  of  systems  framed  under  this  false  conception  will  but 
leave  the  pure  spirit  of  our  religion  in  the  enjoyment  of  a 
more  sacred  homage ;  —  you  may  dash  the  image,  but  you 
cannot  touch  the  god. 

In  the  following  remarks  we  shall  seek  to  make  this  evi- 
dent;—  to  show  what  principles  of  religion  in  general,  and  of 
Christianity  in  particular,  may  be  pronounced  safe  from  the 
shocks  of  doubt.  In  times  of  consternation  and  uncertainty, 


FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN   FAITH.  179 

it  behooves  each  one  to  look  within  him  for  the  heart  of  cour- 
age, and  around  him  for  the  place  of  shelter,  and  to  single 
out,  amid  countless  points  of  danger,  some  refuge  immutable 
and  eternal.  With  this  view,  we  propose  to  trace  an  outline 
of  Christian  truths  which  we  consider  secure  and  durable  as 
our  very  nature ;  —  a  chain  of  granite  points  rising,  like  the 
rock  of  ages,  above  the  shifting  seas  of  human  opinion.  In 
doing  so,  we  shall  be  simply  delineating  Unitarian  Christian- 
ity, according  to  our  conception  of  it ;  —  expounding  it,  not  as 
a  barren  negation,  but  as  a  scheme  of  positive  religion ;  ex- 
hibiting both  its  characteristic  faiths,  and  something  of  the 
modes  of  thought  by  which  they  are  reached. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  WE  HAVE  FAITH  in  the  Moral  Per- 
ceptions of  Man.  The  conscience  with  which  he  is  endowed 
enables  him  to  appreciate  the  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong;  to  understand  the  meaning  of  "ought"  and  "ought 
not ";  to  love  and  revere  whatever  is  great  and  excellent  in 
character,  to  abhor  the  mean  and  base ;  and  to  feel  that  in  the 
contrast  between  these  we  have  the  highest  order  of  differen- 
ces by  which  mind  can  be  separated  from  mind.  And  on  this 
consciousness,  —  the  basis  of  our  whole  responsible  existence, 
—  no  suspicion  is  to  be  cast ;  no  lamentation  over  its  fallibil- 
ity, no  hint  of  possible  delusion,  is  to  pass  unrebuked ;  it  is 
worthy  of  absolute  reliance  as  the  authoritative  oracle  of  our 
nature,  supreme  over  all  its  faculties,  —  entitled  to  use  sense, 
memory,  understanding,  to  register  its  decrees,  without  a  mo- 
ment's license  to  dispute  them.  That  Justice,  Mercy,  and 
Truth  are  good  and  venerable,  is  no  matter  of  doubtful  opin- 
ion, in  which  peradventure  an  error  may  be  hid;  —  is  not 
even  a  thing  of  certain  inference,  recommended  to  us  by  the 
force  of  evidence ;  —  is  not  an  empirical  judgment,  depending 
on  the  pleasurableness  of  these  qualities,  and  capable  of  re- 
versal, if,  under  some  tyrant  sway,  they  were  to  be  rendered 
sources  of  misery.  The  approval  which  we  award  to  them  is 
quite  distinct  from  assent  to  a  scientific  probability ;  the  ex- 
cellence which  we  ascribe  to  them  is  not  identical  with  their 


180  FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH. 

command  of  happiness,  but  altogether  transcends  this,  pre- 
cedes it,  and  survives  it;  the  obligation  they  lay  upon  us  is 
not  the  consequence  of  positive  law,  human  or  divine,  or  in 
any  way  the  creature  of  superior  will ;  for  all  free-will  must 
itself  possess  a  moral  quality,  —  can  never  stir  without  exer- 
cising it,  —  and  cannot  therefore  give  rise  to  that  which  is  a 
prior  condition  of  its  own  activity.  And  if  (to  pursue  the 
thought  suggested  above)  we  could  be  snatched  away  to  some 
distant  world,  some  out-province  of  the  universe,  abandoned 
by  God's  blessed  sway  to  the  absolutism  of  demons,  where 
selfishness  and  sensuality,  and  hate  and  falsehood,  were  pro- 
tected and  enjoined  by  public  law,  it  is  clear  that,  by  such 
emigration,  our  interests  only,  and  not  our  duties,  would  be 
reversed ;  and  that  to  rebel  and  perish  were  nobler  than  to 
comply  and  live.  The  discernment  of  moral  distinctions, 
then,  belongs  to  the  very  highest  order  of  certainties ;  it  has 
its  seat  in  our  deepest  reason,  among  the  primitive  strata  of 
thought,  on  which  the  depositions  of  knowledge,  and  the  accu- 
mulations of  judgment,  and  the  surface  growths  of  opinion,  all 
repose.  As  experience  in  the  past  has  not  taught  it,  experi- 
ence in  the  future  cannot  unteach  it.  The  difference  between 
good  and  evil  we  cannot  conceive  to  be  merely  relative,  and 
incidental  to  our  point  of  view,  —  variable  with  the  locality 
and  the  class  in  which  a  being  happens  to  rest,  —  an  optical 
caprice  of  the  atmosphere  in  which  we  live;  —  but  rather  a 
property  of  the  very  light  itself,  found  everywhere  out  of  the 
region  of  absolute  night ;  or,  at  least,  a  natural  impression, 
belonging  to  that  perceptive  eye  of  the  soul,  through  which 
alone  we  can  look  out,  as  through  a  glass,  upon  all  beings  and 
all  worlds ;  and  if  any  one  will  say  that  the  glass  is  colored,  it 
is,  at  all  events,  the  tint  of  nature,  shed  on  it  by  the  inefface- 
able art  of  the  Creator.  The  modes  in  which  we  think  of 
moral  qualities  are  not  terrestrial  peculiarities  of  idea,  like 
foreign  prejudices ;  the  terms  in  which  we  speak  of  them  are 
not  untranslatable  provincial  idioms,  vulgarities  of  our  plan- 
etary dialect,  but  are  familiar,  like  the  symbols  of  a  divine 
science,  to  every  tribe  of  souls,  belonging  to  the  language  of 


FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH.  181 

the  universe,  and  standing  defined  in  the  vocabulary  of  God. 
The  laws  of  right  are  more  necessarily  universal  than  the 
physical  laws  of  force ;  and  if  the  same  agency  of  gravitation 
that  governs  the  rain-drop  determines  the  evolutions  of  the 
sky,  and  the  Principia  of  Newton  would  be  no  less  intelligible 
and  true  on  the  ring  of  Saturn  than  in  the  libraries  of  this 
earth,  —  yet  more  certain  is  it  that  the  principles  of  moral 
excellence,  truly  expounded  for  the  smallest  sphere  of  respon- 
sibility, hold  good,  by  mere  extension,  for  the  largest,  and  that 
those  sentiments  of  conscience  which  may  give  order  and 
beauty  to  the  life  of  a  child,  constitute  the  blessedness  of 
immortals,  and  penetrate  the  administration  of  God.  This  is 
what  we  intend,  when  we  insist  on  implicit  faith  in  the  moral 
perceptions  of  man.  They  are  to  be  assumed  by  us  as  the 
fixed  station,  the  grand  heliocentric  position,  whence  our  sur- 
vey of  the  spiritual  universe  must  be  made,  and  our  system 
of  religion  constructed.  Whatever  else  may  move,  here,  as 
in  creation's  centre  of  gravity,  we  take  our  everlasting  stand. 
Whatever  else  be  doubtful,  these  are  to  be  simply  trusted. 
The  force  of  certainty  by  which  nature  and  God  give  them  to 
the  conscience  exceeds  any  by  which,  either  through  the  un- 
derstanding or  through  external  supernatural  communication, 
they  might  seem  to  be  drawn  away.  No  revelation  could  per- 
suade me  that  what  I  revere  as  just,  and  good,  and  holy,  is 
not  venerable,  any  more  than  it  could  convince  me  that  the 
midnight  heavens  are  not  sublime. 

There  is  nothing  to  move  us  from  this  position,  in  the  ob- 
jection, that  different  men  have  different  ideas  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  that  the  heroic  deeds  of  one  latitude  are  regarded 
as  the  crimes  of  another.  This  moral  discrepancy  is,  in  the 
first  place,  infinitely  small  in  proportion  to  the  moral  agree- 
ment of  mankind,  so  that  it  is  even  difficult  to  find  many 
striking  examples  of  it ;  and  when  the  subject  is  mentioned, 
everybody  expects  to  hear  the  self-immolation  of  the  Indian 
widow,  and  other  superstitions  of  the  Ganges,  adduced  as  the 
standing  illustrations.  What,  after  all,  are  these  eccentricities 
of  the  moral  sense,  compared  with  the  scale  of  its  common 
16 


182  FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH. 

consent  ?  As  well  might  you  deny  the  existence  of  an  at- 
mosphei'e,  because  you  have  found  the  air  exhausted  from  a 
pump  !  Where  i.s  the  nation  or  the  individual,  without  the  rudi- 
ments, however  imperfectly  unfolded,  of  the  same  great  ideas 
of  duty  which  we  possess  ourselves  ?  —  where  the  language, 
in  which  there  are  no  terms  to  denote  good  and  evil,  —  the 
just,  the  brave,  the  merciful?  —  where  the  tribe  so  barbarous 
as  not  to  listen,  with  earnest  eye,  to  the  story  of  the  good 
Samaritan  ?  And  if  such  there  were,  should  we  not  call 
them  a  people  but  little  human  (inhuman},  and  deem  them, 
not  the  specimens,  but  the  outlaws  of  our  nature  ?  Moreover, 
the  variances  of  moral  judgment  are  usually  only  apparent 
and  external.  The  action  which  one  man  pronounces  wrong 
and  another  right,  is  not  the  same,  except  upon  the  lips  : 
enter  the  minds  of  the  two  disputants,  and  you  will  find  that 
it  is  only  half  taken  into  the  view  of  each,  and  presents  to 
them  its  opposite  hemispheres ;  no  wonder  that  it  shows  the 
darkness  of  guilt  to  the  one,  and  the  sunshine  of  virtue  to  the 
other.  And  accordingly,  these  differences  actually  vanish  as 
the  faculty  of  conscience  unfolds  itself,  and  the  scope  of  the 
mind  is  enlarged.  Like  the  discrepancies  in  the  ideas  which 
men  have  of  beauty,  they  exist  principally  between  the  un- 
cultivated and  the  refined:  and  the  well-developed  percep- 
tions of  the  best  in  all  ages  and  countries  visibly  agree.  Nay, 
while  yet  the  discordance  lasts,  it  introduces  no  real  doubt : 
for  heaven  has  established  a  moral  subordination  among  men, 
which  reveals  the  real  truth  of  our  own  nature.  Do  we  not 
always  see,  that  the  lower  conscience  bows  before  the  higher ; 
—  that  the  heart,  without  light  or  heat  itself,  may  be  pierced, 
as  with  a  flash,  by  a  sentiment  darted  from  a  loftier  soul,  and 
own  it  to  be  from  above ;  —  that,  simply  by  this  natural 
allegiance  of  the  lesser  to  the  nobler,  classes  and  nations 
and  sects  are  raised  in  dignity  and  moral  greatness ;  —  that 
they,  and  they  only,  have  had  any  grand  and  sublime  exist- 
ence in  the  history  of  the  world,  who  have  been  gifted  with 
power  to  create  a  new  religion,  —  a  fresh  development  of 
what  is  holy  and  divine  ;  —  and  that  every  one  so  endowed 


FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN   FAITH.  183 

has  always  gathered  around  him  the  multitudes  ever  praying 
to  be  lifted  above  the  level  of  their  life,  and  blessing  the 
benefactor  who  wakes  up  the  consciousness  of  their  higher 
nature  ?  And  if  so,  the  general  direction  of  the  moral  senti- 
ment is  the  same,  however  its  intensity  may  vary :  and  the 
irregular  indications  which  it  gives  are  not  due  to  any  inherent 
vacillation,  but  to  the  disturbing  causes  which  deflect  it  from 
the  celestial  line  of  simplicity  and  truth. 

We  keep  our  foot,  then,  on  this  primitive  foundation, — 
faith  in  the  moral  perceptions  of  man.  We  say,  that  we 
know  what  we  mean,  when  we  affirm  that  a  being  is  just, 
pure,  disinterested,  merciful ;  that  these  terms  describe  one 
particular  kind  of  character,  and  one  only ;  that  they  have 
the  same  sense  to  whomsoever  they  are  applied,  and  are  not 
to  be  juggled  with,  so  as  to  denote  quite  opposite  forms  of 
action  and  disposition,  according  as  our  discourse  may  be  of 
heaven  or  of  earth ;  that  whenever  they  lose  their  ordinary 
and  intelligible  signification,  they  become  senseless ;  and  that 
what  would  be  wrong  and  odious  in  any  one  moral  agent, 
can  be,  under  similar  relations,  right  and  lovely  in  no 
other.  These  positions,  which  we  take  to  be  fundamental, 
are  in  direct  contradiction  to  the  theological  maxims  with 
which  most  churches  begin  ;  —  viz.  that  human  nature  is  so 
depraved  that  its  conscience  has  lost  its  discernment,  sees 
everything  through  a  corrupted  medium,  and  deserves  no 
trust ;  that  it  may  surrender  its  convictions  to  anything 
which  can  bring  fair  historical  evidence  of  its  being  a  revela- 
tion ;  —  in  other  words,  that  it  may  be  right  to  throw  away 
our  ideas  of  right,  and,  in  obedience  to  antiquarian  witnesses, 
suppose  it  holy  in  God  to  design  and  execute  a  scheme 
which  it  would  be  a  crime  in  man  to  imitate.  These  prin- 
ciples are  defended  by  the  assertion,  that  the  relations  of 
the  Divine  and  the  human  being  are  so  different  as  to  de- 
stroy all  the  analogies  of  character  between  them.  The  only 
tendency,  both  of  this  defence  and  of  the  principles  them- 
selves, is  to  absolute  scepticism  ;  —  to  atheistical  scepticism, 
inasmuch  as  our  propositions  respecting  God,  if  not  true  in 


184  FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH. 

the  plain  human  sense,  are  to  us  true  in  no  other,  and  repre- 
sent nothing  ;  to  moral  scepticism,  inasmuch  as,  the  sentiments 
of  conscience  being  exposed  to  distrust,  and  all  its  language 
rendered  unsettled,  the  very  ground  on  which  human  char- 
acter must  plant  itself  is  loosened ;  the  rock  of  duty  melts 
into  water  beneath  our  feet,  and  we  are  cast  into  the  waves 
of  impulse  and  caprice. 

II.  We  have  Faith  in  the  Moral  Perfection  of  God.  This 
indeed  is  a  plain  consequence  of  our  reliance  on  the  natural 
sentiments  of  duty  For  it  is  not,  we  apprehend,  by  our 
logical,  but  by  our  moral  faculty,  that  we  have  our  knowledge 
of  God  ;  and  he  who  most  confides  in  the  instructor  will  learn 
the  sacred  lesson  best.  That  one  whom  we  may  call  the 
Holiest  rules  the  universe,  is  no  discovery  made  by  the  in- 
tellect in  its  excursions,  but  a  revelation  found  by  the  con- 
science on  retiring  into  itself;  and  though  we  may  reason 
in  defence  of  this  great  truth,  and  these  reasonings,  when 
constructed,  may  look  convincing  enough,  they  are  not,  we 
conceive,  the  source,  but  rather  the  effect,  of  our  belief,  — 
not  the  forethought  which  actually  precedes  and  introduces 
the  Faith,  but  the  afterthought  by  which  Faith  seeks  to  make 
a  friend  and  an  intimate  of  the  understanding.  Does  any 
one  hesitate  to  admit  this,  and  think  that  our  conceptions 
of  the  Divine  character  are  inferences  regularly  drawn  from 
observation,  —  not  indeed  observation  on  the  mere  physical 
arrangements,  but  on  the  moral  phenomena,  of  our  world,  — 
from  the  traces  of  a  regard  to  character  in  the  administration 
of  human  life  ?  We  will  not  at  present  dispute  the  conclu- 
sion; but,  observing  that  the  premises  which  furnish  it  are 
certain  moral  experiences,  we  remark  that  the  very  power  of 
receiving  and  appreciating  these,  of  knowing  what  they  are 
worth,  belongs  not  to  our  scientific  faculty,  but  to  our  sense  of 
justice  and  of  right.  On  a  being  destitute  of  this  they  would 
make  no  impression  ;  and  in  precise  proportion  to  the  intensity 
of  this  feeling  will  be  the  vividness  and  force  of  their  per- 
suasion. And  is  it  not  plain  in  fact,  that  it  is  far  from  being 


FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH.  185 

the  clear  and  acute  intellect,  but  rather  the  pure  and  trans- 
parent heart,  that  best  discerns  God  ?  How  many  strong  and 
sagacious  judgments,  of  coolest  capacity  for  the  just  estimate 
of  argument,  never  attain  to  any  deep  conviction  of  a  perfect 
Deity !  Nay,  how  much  does  scepticism  on  this  great  matter 
seem  to  be  proportioned,  not  to  the  obtuseness,  but  rather  to 
the  subtlety  and  searchingness  of  the  mere  understanding? 
But  when  was  it  ever  known  that  the  singularly  pure  and 
simple  heart,  the  earnest  and  aspiring  conscience,  the  lofty 
and  disinterested  soul,  had  no  faith  in  the  "  First  fair  and 
the  First  good "  ?  Philosophy  at  its  ease,  apart  from  the 
real  responsibilities  and  strong  battle  of  life,  loses  its  diviner 
sympathies,  and  lapses  into  the  scrupulosity  of  doubt,  and 
from  the  centre  of  comfort  weeps  over  the  miseries  of  earth, 
and  the  questionable  benevolence  of  heaven ;  while  the  prac- 
tically tried  and  struggling,  with  moral  force  growing  beneath 
the  pressure  of  crushing  toil,  look  up  with  a  refreshing  trust, 
and  with  worn  and  bleeding  feet  pant  happily  along  to  the 
abodes  of  everlasting  love.  The  moral  victor,  flushed  with 
triumph  over  temptation,  feels  that  God  is  on  his  side,  and 
that  the  spirit  of  the  universe  is  in  sympathy  with  his  joy. 
Never  did  any  one  spend  himself  in  the  service  of  man,  and 
yet  despair  of  the  benignity  of  God.  Our  faith,  then,  in  the 
Divine  perfection,  forms  and  disengages  itself  from  the  deeps 
of  conscience :  and  the  Holiest  that  broods  over  us  solemnly 
rises  —  the  awful  spirit  of  eternity  —  from  the  ocean  of  our 
moral  nature. 

It  is  in  conformity  with  this  doctrine  of  the  moral  origin 
of  our  belief  in  the  first  principles  of  religion,  that  to  every 
man  his  God  is  his  best  and  highest,  the  embodiment  of  that 
which  the  believer  himself  conceives  to  be  the  greatest.  The 
image  which  he  forms  of  that  Being  may  indeed  be  gross  and 
terrible ;  and  others  may  be  shocked,  and  exclaim  that  he 
trusts,  not  in  a  Divinity,  but  in  a  Fiend :  but  will  the  wor- 
shipper himself  perceive  and  acknowledge  this  ?  —  will  he  not 
indignantly  deny  it  ?  —  will  he  not  eagerly  vindicate  the  per- 
fection of  the  Deity  he  serves  ?  He  can  do  no  otherwise ;  for 
16* 


186  FIVE   POINTS    OF   CHRISTIAN   FAITH. 

he  discerns  nothing  more  sublime,  and  cannot  be  convinced 
that  that  is  low  which  stands  at  the  summit  of  his  thoughts. 
This  uniform  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  religion  could 
not  exist,  if  human  faith  were  an  inference  of  intellectual 
origin.  There  would  be  nothing  then  to  prevent  some  men, 
in  their  reasonings  on  the  probable  character  of  God,  from 
assigning  to  that  character  a  place  beneath  their  own  con- 
ceptions of  what  is  most  excellent ;  and  amid  the  infinite 
varieties  of  speculation,  many  forms  of  this  opinion  would 
undoubtedly  arise.  Let  any  one,  then,  who  dissents  from  the 
account  which  we  have  given,  ask  himself  this  question  :  Why 
is  it,  that  to  discover  a  blemish  in  a  divinity  is  the  same 
thing  as  to  renounce  faith  in  him ;  and  that,  even  in  pagan 
times,  to  assail  the  character  of  the  gods  was  the  constant 
mark  of  an  unbelieving  age?  Is  it  not  clear  that,  by  a 
constraining  necessity  of  our  being,  we  are  compelled  to 
regard  the  godlike  and  the  perfect  as  identical,  and  to  look 
to  heaven  through  the  eye  of  our  moral  nature  ?  The  Intellect 
alone,  like  the  telescope  waiting  for  an  observer,  is  quite  blind 
to  the  celestial  things  above  it,  —  a  dead  mechanism  dipped 
in  night,  —  ready  to  serve  as  the  dioptric  glass,  spreading  the 
images  of  light  from  the  Infinite  on  the  tender  and  living 
retina  of  Conscience. 

If,  then,  there  is  no  discernment  of  Deity  except  through 
our  moral  sense,  the  importance  of  confiding  in  the  percep- 
tions of  that  sense,  —  of  rendering  our  consciousness  of  them 
vivid  and  distinct,  —  and  the  corresponding  mischief  of  dis- 
trusting and  repudiating  these  our  appointed  instructors,  — 
become  evident.  Faith  in  the  human  conscience  is  neces- 
sary to  faith  in  the  Divine  perfection :  and  this  again  is  the 
needful  prelude  to  the  belief  in  any  special  revelation.  For, 
unless  we  are  first  assured  of  the  truth  and  excellence  of 
God,  we  cannot  tell  that  his  communications  may  not  de- 
ceive us,  giving  us  false  notices  of  things,  and  agitating  us 
with  illusory  hopes  and  fears.  This  might  be  apprehended 
from  a  Being  of  undetermined  benevolence  and  integrity: 
and  that  this  idea  of  a  mendacious  revelation  has  never  se- 


FIVE   POINTS    OP   CHRISTIAN   FAITH.  187 

riously  entered  the  minds  of  men,  is  a  strong  proof  of  their 
natural  and  necessary  faith  in  the  rectitude  and  goodness  of 
the  Divine  Administrator  of  creation.  This  Moral  Perfec- 
tion of  God  being  assumed  as  a  postulate  in  the  very  idea  of 
a  Revelation,  no  system  of  religion  which  contradicts  it  can 
be  admitted  as  credible  on  any  terms. 

Now  the  whole  scheme  of  Redemption,  as  it  is  represented 
in  the  popular  theology,  appears  to  us  to  fall  under  this 
condemnation.  Under  the  names  of  Justice,  Sanctity,  Mercy, 
it  ascribes  to  the  All-perfect  a  course  of  sentiment  and  of 
practice  which  —  it  is  undeniable  —  no  other  moral  agent, 
placed  in  analogous  relations,  could  adopt  without  the  deepest 
guilt.  The  Holiness  of  God,  so  often  adduced  to  justify  the 
severities  of  this  scheme,  we  would  yield  to  no  one  in  ear- 
nestly maintaining ;  believing,  as  we  do,  that  his  abhorrence 
of  moral  evil  is  absolute  and  everlasting,  his  resistance  to  it 
real  and  true,  and  his  love  of  excellence  simply  infinite  as 
his  nature.  But  purity  of  mind  does  not  express  itself  by 
implacable  vengeance  against  the  impure,  or  oblige  its  pos- 
sessor to  engage  himself  in  physically  smiting  them,  —  much 
less  limit  him  through  all  eternity  to  this  mode  of  adminis- 
tration. Rather  does  it  incline  away  from  a  treatment  which 
too  often  adds  only  torment,  and  removes  no  guilt,  —  which 
makes  no  advance  towards  the  blessed  dispositions  it  loves,  — 
which  fevers  and  parches  instead  of  cooling  and  melting  the 
passions  of  a  culprit  nature.  It  is  a  coarse  and  wretched 
error  to  suppose  that  anguish  is  a  specific  for  sin,  to  the 
incessant  infliction  of  which  the  Sinless  is  bound.  God  never 
departs  indeed  from  his  devotion  to  the  laws  of  goodness,  and 
his  design  of  calling  wider  and  wider  virtue  into  existence : 
but  he  pursues  them  with  the  fertility  of  his  infinite  free-will ; 
—  now  by  the  severities  of  his  displeasure,  —  now  by  the 
openness  of  his  forgiveness,  —  now  by  the  solicitations  of  his 
love.  His  purpose,  as  one  whose  perfection  is  not  merely 
spotless,  but  active  and  productive,  cannot  be,  as  some  Chris- 
tians seem  to  say,  the  penal  publication  of  his  personal  offence 
against  the  insulters  of  his  law,  but  the  spread  and  cultivation 


188  FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH. 

throughout  his  spiritual  universe  of  pure  and  high  affections : 
and  whenever  the  new  germs  of  these  appear  in  the  garden 
of  the  Lord,  no  vernal  sunshine  or  summer  dews  can  more 
gently  cherish  the  bursting  flower,  than  does  his  mercy  foster 
the  fair  and  early  growth.  The  assertion  that  God  cannot 
pardon  and  recall  to  goodness  till  he  has  expended  his  tor- 
tures upon  the  evil,  seems  to  us  a  plain  denial  of  his  moral 
excellence.  Theologians  speak  as  if  there  were  some  crime, 
or  at  least  some  weakness,  in  the  clemency  which  freely 
receives  a  repentant  creature  into  favor;  as  if  the  mercy 
which  exacts  no  penalty,  when  penalty  is  no  longer  needed, 
were  an  amiable  imbecility  of  human  nature,  which  only  a 
loose-principled  and  unholy  being  can  exercise  !  as  if  absolute 
unforgiveness  were  the  perfection  of  sanctity !  True,  this 
is  disclaimed  in  words ;  and  the  Eternal  Father  is  called 
merciful,  for  remitting  the  sinner's  doom  and  transferring  the 
burden  of  his  guilt  to  a  victim  divine  and  pure.  But  surely 
this  disclaimer  is  more  insulting  to  our  moral  sense  than  the 
accusation.  For,  either  this  transference  of  righteousness 
and  guilt  is  a  mere  figure  of  speech,  denoting  only  that,  from 
the  death  on  Calvary,  God  took  chronological  occasion  to 
pass  his  own  spontaneous  pardon,  and  set  up  the  cross  to 
mark  the  date  of  his  volition ;  or  else,  if  the  vicariousness  be 
not  this  mere  pretence,  it  describes  an  outrage  upon  the  first 
principles  of  rectitude,  a  reckless  disregard  of  all  moral  con- 
siderations, from  the  thought  of  which  we  are  astonished 
that  all  good  men  do  not  recoil. 

We  press  once  more  the  question  which  has  never  been 
answered:  How  is  the  alleged  immoi-ality  of  letting  off  the 
sinner  mended  by  the  added  crime  of  penally  crushing  the 
Sinless  ?  Of  what  man  —  of  what  angel  —  could  such  a  thing 
be  reported,  without  raising  a  cry  of  indignant  shame  from 
the  universal  human  heart  ?  What  should  we  think  of  a 
judge  who  should  discharge  the  felons  from  the  prisons  of 
a  city,  because  some  noble  and  generous  citizen  offered  him- 
self to  the  executioner  instead?  And  if  this  would  be  bar- 
barity below,  it  cannot  be  holiness  above.  Moral  excellence 


FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH.  189 

and  beauty,  we  repeat,  are  no  local  growths,  changing  their 
species  with  every  clime  ;  nor  are  the  poisonous  weeds  of  this 
outer  region  the  chosen  adornments  of  paradise.  The  prin- 
ciples of  Justice  and  Right  embrace  all  beings  and  all  times, 
and,  like  the  indestructible  conception  of  space,  attach  them- 
selves to  our  contemplation  of  objects  within  the  remotest 
infinitude.  It  is  no  more  possible  that  what  would  be  evil  in 
man  should  be  good  in  God,  than  that  a  circle  on  earth 
should  be  a  square  in  heaven.  Having  faith,  then,  in  the 
absolute  perfection  of  our  Creator,  we  dare  ascribe  to  Him 
nothing  which  revolts  the  secret  conscience  He  has  given  us. 

HI.  The  relation  which  thus  subsists  between  the  human 
conscience  and  the  Divine  excellence  leads  us  to  avow,  in 
the  next  place,  a  FAITH  in  the  strictly  Divine  and  Inspired 
Character  of  our  own  highest  Desires  and  best  Affections. 
We  do  not  mean  by  this,  that  these  affections  are  of  miracu- 
lous origin ;  that  their  appearance  breaks  through  any  regular 
law  ;  or  that  they  do  not  belong  to  our  own  nature  so  as  to 
form  an  integrant  part  of  its  history ;  or  that  they  do  not 
arise  spontaneously  within  it,  but  require  to  be  precipitated 
upon  it  %>m  without.  They  are  as  much  properties  of  our 
own  minds,  as  our  selfishness  and  sin :  we  are  conscious  of 
them,  and  so  they  cannot  but  be  parts  of  our  personality.* 


*  Perhaps  we  should  rather  say,  "  they  cannot  be  alien  to  our  nature." 
The  word  personality  is  used  by  philosophical  writers  to  denote  that 
which  is  peculiar,  as  well  as  essential,  to  our  individual  self.  In  this  strict 
sense  the  moral  and  spiritual  affections  are  impersonal,  according  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  context,  which  treats  them  as  constituting  a  participation  in  the 
Divine  nature.  The  metaphysical  reader  will  perhaps  perceive  here  a  re- 
semblance to  the  theory  of  Victor  Cousin,  who  maintains  that  the  mil —  the 
free  and  voluntary  activity  —  of  the  human  being  is  the  specific  faculty  in 
which  alone  consists  his  personality;  and  that  the  intuitive  reason  by 
which  we  have  knowledge  of  the  unlimited  and  absolute  Cause,  as  well  as 
of  ourselves  and  the  universe  as  related  effects,  is  independent  and  imper- 
sonal,—  a  faculty  not  peculiar  to  the  subject,  but  "  from  the  bosom  of  con- 
sciousness extending  to  the  Infinite,  and  reaching  to  the  Being  of  beings." 
"  Reason,"  observes  this  philosopher,  "  is  intimately  connected  with  person- 
ality and  sensibility,  but  it  is  neither  the  one  nor  the  other:  and  precisely 
because  it  is  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  because  it  is  in  us  without  being 


190  FIVE   POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH. 

But  in  admitting  them  to  be  human^  I  do  not  deny  that  they 
are  divine :  in  regarding  them  as  indigenous  to  our  created 
spirit,  I  do  not  treat  them  as  foreign  to  the  Creator's :  nor  is 
there  any  inconsistency  in  believing  them  to  be  simultaneously 
domesticated  with  both.  That  which  is  included  within  the 
mind  of  man,  is  not  therefore  excluded  from  the  mind  of  God  ; 
much  less  is  it  true  that  occurrences  agreeable  to  the  order  of 
nature  are,  by  that  circumstance,  disqualified  from  being  held 
the  immediate  products  of  the  Heavenly  Will.  The  Supreme 
Cause,  so  far  from  being  shut  out  by  his  own  secondary  causes 
and  natural  laws,  has  now  at  least  no  residence,  no  activity, 
no  existence,  except  within  them ;  He  covers,  penetrates,  fills 
them  ;  thinks,  speaks,  executes,  through  them,  as  the  media  of 
his  volition  :  and  His  energy  and  theirs  not  only  may  coincide, 
but  even  must  coalesce  He  is  not  to  be  brought  down  from 
his  universal  dominion  to  the  rank  of  one  of  the  physical 
causes  active  in  creation,  doing  that  only  which  the  others 
have  left  undone.  Will  any  one  stand  with  me  by  the  mid- 
night sea,  and,  because  the  tides  in  the  deep  below  hang  upon 
the  moon  in  the  heavens  above,  forbid  me  to  hear  in  their 
sweep  the  very  voice  of  God,  and  tell  me  that,  while  they 


ourselves,  does  it  reveal  to  us  that  which  is  not  ourselves,  —  objects  beside 
the  subject  itself,  and  which  lie  beyond  its  sphere."  At  the  opposite  pole  to 
this  doctrine,  which  makes  the  perceptions  of  "  Reason  "  a  part  of  the  ac- 
tivity of  God,  lies  the  system  of  Kant  and  Fichte,  which  represents  God  as 
an  ideal  formation,  —  it  may  be,  therefore,  auction,  —  arising  from  the  ac- 
tivity of  the  "  Reason."  This  faculty  is  treated  by  these  German  philoso- 
phers as  merely  subjective  and  personal ;  its  perceptions,  even  when  they 
seem  to  go  beyond  itself,  are  known  only  as  internal  conditions  and  results 
of  self-activity ;  its  beliefs,  though  inevitable  to  itself,  are  simply  relative, 
and  have  no  objective  validity.  The  faiths  and  affections  which  this  system 
regards  as  purely  human,  are  considered  by  the  other  as  divine.  The  doc- 
trine maintained  above,  though  resembling  that  of  Kant  in  one  or  two  of 
its  phrases,  far  more  nearly  approaches  that  of  Cousin  in  its  spirit.  It  is 
scarcely  necessary  to  observe  that,  in  this  note,  the  word  "  Reason  "  is  used, 
not  as  equivalent  to  "  Understanding,"  but  in  the  German  sense  so  long  ren- 
dered familiar  to  the  English  reader  by  the  writings  of  Mr.  Coleridge.  It 
includes,  therefore,  (in  its  two  senses  of"  Speculative  "  and  "  Practical")  the 
"  Moral  Perceptions  "  and  "  Primitive  Faiths  of  the  Conscience,"  spoken  of 
in  the  text. 


FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN   FAITH.  191 

roll  untired  on,  He  sleeps  through  the  silent  vault  around  me  ? 
It  is  by  the  law  of  gravitation  that  the  planets  find  an  un- 
erring track  in  the  desert  space ;  and  is  it  false,  then,  that 
He  "  leadeth  them  forth  with  his  finger,"  and  bids  us  note,  in 
pledge  of  his  punctuality,  that  "  not  one  faileth  "  ?  Is  there 
any  error  in  ascribing  the  very  same  event  at  one  time  to 
gravitation,  at  another  to  God  ?  Certainly  not ;  for  this  is 
but  one  of  the  forms  of  his  personal  activity.  And  it  is  the 
same  in  the  world  of  Mind ;  its  natural  laws  do  not  exclude, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  include,  the  direct  Divine  agency :  and 
though  my  thought,  or  hope,  or  love,  cannot  be  yours,  they 
may  yet  be  God's ;  not  emanations  from  the  God  without 
us,  but  inspirations  of  the  God  within.  Why  should  we 
start  to  think  that  there  is  a  part  of  us  which  is  divine  ?  — 
why  image  to  ourselves  a  distant,  external,  contemplative 
God,  seeing  all  things  and  touching  nothing,  gazing  on  the 
unconscious  evolutions  of  things,  as  the  retired  Mechanist  of 
nature  ?  —  why  enthrone  Him  in  the  inertness  of  dead  space, 
without  even  a  sacred  function  there,  and  exclude  Him  from 
the  tried,  and  tempted,  and  ever-trembling  soul  of  Man  ?  If 
we  found  Him  not  at  home  in  the  secret  places  of  strife  and 
sorrow,  vainly  should  we  wander  to  seek  Him  in  the  colder 
regions  of  nature  abi'oad.  We  have  no  sympathy  with  any 
system  which  denies  the  doctrine  of  a  Holy  Spirit;  which 
discerns  nothing  divine  in  the  higher  experiences  of  human 
nature  ;  which  owns  no  black  abyss  and  no  heavenly  heights 
in  the  soul  of  man,  but  only  a  flat,  common,  midway  region, 
neither  very  foul  nor  very  fair,  —  well  enough  for  the  streets 
of  traffic,  but  without  a  mount  of  vision  and  of  prayer.  Noth- 
ing noble,  nothing  great,  has  ever  come  from  a  faith  which 
did  not  deeply  reverence  the  soul,  and  stand  in  awe  of  it  as 
the  seat  of  God's  own  dwelling,  the  presence-chamber  of  his 
sanctity,  —  the  focus  of  that  infinite  whispering-gallery  which 
the  universe  spreads  around  us. 

Nor  can  we  doubt  at  what  point  of  our  own  nature  we 
must  stand,  in  order  to  hear  the  voice  and  feel  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Eternal.  The  pure  in  heart  —  each  in  propor- 


192  FIVE   POINTS    OF   CHRISTIAN   FAITH. 

tion  to  his  purity  —  see  Him.  Our  Conscience,  our  Moral 
Perceptions,  as  we  have  seen,  are  our  only  revealers  of  God. 
In  proportion  to  their  clearness  do  we  discern  Him ;  and 
behind  the  clouds  that  obscure  them,  He  becomes  dim,  and 
vanishes  away.  The  aspirations  of  duty,  the  love  of  excel- 
lence, the  disinterested  and  holy  affections,  of  which  every 
good  heart  is  conscious,  constitute  our  affinity  with  Him,  — 
by  which  we  know  Him,  as  like  knows  like :  they  are  the 
expression  of  his  mind,  the  pencil  of  rays  by  which  He  paints 
his  image  on  our  spiritual  nature.  God  is  related  to  our 
soul,  like  the  sun  in  a  stormy  sky  to  the  windowed  cells  in 
which  mortals  live  ;  and  as  we  sit  at  our  work  in  the  cham- 
ber of  conscience  or  of  love,  the  burst  of  brilliancy  or  the 
sudden  gloom  within  reports  to  us  the  clear-shining  or  the 
cloud  of  the  heaven  without.  Nor  can  any  philosophy, 
falsely  so  called,  permanently  expel  this  conviction  from  the 
Christian  heart.  Every  devout  and  earnest  mind  naturally 
feels  that  its  selfishness  and  sin  are  of  the  earth,  earthy,  — 
the  most  offensive  of  all  attitudes  to  God,  —  the  infatuated 
turning  of  the  back  to  Him :  and,  on  the  other  hand,  wel- 
comes the  fresh  glow  of  pure  Resolve,  the  heart-felt  sob  of 
Penitence,  the  glorious  Courage  that  slays  Temptation  at  his 
feet,  —  each  as  the  gracious  gift  of  a  divine  strength,  and  the 
authentic  voice  of  the  Inspirer,  God.  By  this  natural  faith 
(natural,  however,  only  to  the  Christian  mind)  we  are  pre- 
pared to  abide ;  and,  with  the  Apostle  Paul,  to  own  ourselves, 
not  without  deep  awe,  the  very  temple  of  the  Holiest. 

IV.  We  have  said,  that  in  the  Conscience  and  Moral  Af- 
fections we  have  our  only  revealers  of  God.  Let  it  be  un- 
derstood that  we  mean  our  only  internal  revealers  of  Him ; 
the  only  faculty  of  our  nature  capable  of  furnishing  us  with 
the  idea  and  belief  of  Him,  with  any  perception  of  his  char- 
acter, and  allegiance  to  his  will.  We  mean  to  state  that, 
without  this  faculty,  the  bare  intellect,  the  mere  scientific 
and  reasoning  power,  could  make  no  way  towards  the  knowl- 
edge of  divine  realities  ;  could  never,  by  any  system  of  helps 


FIVE   POINTS    OF   CHRISTIAN   FAITH.  193 

whatsoever,  be  trained  or  guided  into  this  knowledge,  any 
more  than,  in  the  absence  of  the  proper  sense,  the  ear  of 
the  blind  can  be  taught  to  see  ;  and  that  nature,  life,  history, 
miracle,  notwithstanding  their  most  sedulous  discipline,  would 
leave  us  utterly  in  the  dark  about  religion,  except  so  far  as 
they  addressed  themselves  to  our  consciousness  of  what  is 
holy,  just,  beautiful,  and  great.  But  we  do  not  mean  to  state 
that  the  Moral  Sense  can  stand  alone,  dispense  with  all  out- 
ward instruction,  and  supply  a  man  with  a  natural  religion 
ready  made.  Nor  do  we  mean  that  the  every-day  experience 
of  man,  and  the  ordinary  providence  of  God,  are  enough, 
without  special  revelation,  to  lead  us  to  heavenly  truth.  And 
we  are  therefore  prepared  to  advance  another  step,  and  to  say, 
that,  while  regarding  the  human  conscience  as  the  only  inward 
revealer  of  God,  we  have  FAITH  in  CHRIST  as  his  perfect  and 
transcendent  outward  revelation.  We  conceive  that  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  lived  and  died,  not  to  persuade  the  Father,  not  to 
appease  the  Father,  not  to  make  a  sanguinary  purchase  from 
the  Father,  but  simply  to  "  show  us  the  Father " ;  to  leave 
upon  the  human  heart  a  new,  deep,  vivid  impression  of  what 
God  is  in  himself,  and  of  what  he  designs  for  his  creature, 
man ;  to  become,  in  short,  the  accepted  interpreter  of  heaven 
and  life.  And  this  he  achieved,  in  the  only  way  of  which  we 
can  conceive  as  practicable,  by  a  new  disclosure  in  his  own 
person  of  all  that  is  holy  and  godlike  in  character,  —  startling 
the  human  soul  with  the  sudden  apparition  of  a  being  diviner 
far  than  it  had  yet  beheld,  and  lifting  its  faith  at  once  into 
quite  another  and  purer  region.  If  it  be  true,  as  we  have 
ventured  to  affirm,  that  to  every  man  his  God  is  his  best,  you 
can  by  no  means  give  to  his  faith  a  higher  God,  till  you  have 
given  to  his  heart  a  better  best,  —  till  you  have  touched  him 
with  a  profounder  sense  of  sanctity  and  excellence,  and  puri- 
fied and  enlarged  the  perceptions  of  his  conscience.  Nor  can 
you  do  this,  except  by  presenting  him  with  nobler  models, 
with  the  living  form  of  a  fairer  and  sublimer  goodness,  visibly 
transcending  every  object  of  his  previous  reverence.  No 
verbal  teaching,  no  didactic  rules,  oan  transform  any  man's 
17 


194  FIVE   POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN   FAITH. 

moral  taste,  and  place  before  his  mental  view  a  lovelier  and 
truer  image  of  perfection :  as  well  might  you  hope,  by  defi- 
nition, and  precept,  and  book-wisdom,  to  train  an  artist  with  a 
soul  like  Raffaelle,  or  an  eye  like  Claude.  But  only  give  the 
glorious  model  to  the  mind,  produce  the  most  finished  excel- 
lence and  harmony,  and  our  instinctive  sympathy  with  good- 
ness feels  and  discerns  it  instantly,  and,  though  unable  to 
conceive  it  inventively  beforehand,  recognizes  it  reverently 
afterwards.  And  so  Christ,  standing  in  solitary  greatness, 
and  invested  with  unapproachable  sanctity,  opens  at  once  the 
eye  of  conscience  to  perceive  and  know  the  pure  and  holy 
God,  the  Father  that  dwelt  in  him  and  made  him  so  full  of 
truth  and  grace.  Him  that  rules  in  heaven  we  can  in  no 
wise  believe  to  be  less  perfect  than  that  which  is  most  divine 
on  earth ;  of  anything  more  perfect  than  the  meek  yet  majestic 
Jesus,  no  heart  can  ever  dream.  And,  accordingly,  ever  since 
he  visited  our  earth  with  blessing,  the  soul  of  Christendom  has 
worshipped  a  God  resembling  him,  —  a  God  of  whom  he  was 
the  image  and  impersonation  ;  —  and,  therefore,  not  the  God 
of  which  philosophy  dreams,  —  a  mere  Infinite  physical  Force, 
without  spirituality,  without  love,  chiefly  engaged  in  whirling 
the  fly-wheel  of  nature,  and  sustaining  the  material  order 
of  the  heavens,  and  weaving  in  the  secret  workshop  of 
creation  new  textures  of  life  and  beauty;  not  the  God  of 
which  natural  theology  speaks,  the  mere  chief  of  ingenious 
mechanicians,  more  optical,  and  dynamical,  and  architec- 
tural, than  our  most  skilful  engineers,  —  a  cold  intellectual 
Being,  in  the  severe  immensity  and  immutability  of  whose 
mind  all  warm  emotions  are  absorbed  and  dissolved ;  not  the 
God  of  Calvinism,  creating  a  race  with  certain  foresight  of 
the  eternal  damnation  of  the  many,  and  against  the  few  re- 
fusing to  relax  his  frown  except  at  the  spectacle  of  blood  ;  — 
but  the  Infinite  Spirit,  so  holy,  so  affectionate,  so  pitiful,  whom 
Jesus  felt  to  be  in  him  as  his  Inspirer ;  who  passes  bj  no 
wounds  of  sin  or  sorrow ;  who  stills  the  winds  and  waves  of 
terror,  to  the  perishing  that  call  on  him  in  faith ;  who  stops 
the  procession  of  our  grief,  and  bids  bereaved  affection  weep 


FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH.  195 

no  more,  but  wait  upon  the  voice  that  even  the  dead  obey ; 
who  scathes  the  hypocrite  with  the  lightning  of  conviction, 
and  permits  the  penitent  to  wash  his  feet  with  tears ;  who 
reckons  most  his  own  the  gentlest  follower,  that  rests  the 
head  and  turns  up  the  trustful  eye  on  him ;  and  bends  that 
look  of  piercing  love  upon  the  guilty  which  best  rebukes  the 
guilt.  Jesus  has  given  us  a  faith  never  held  before,  and  still 
too  much  obscured,  in  the  affectionateness  of  the  Great  Ruler ; 
has  made  Him  our  own  domestic  God,  whose  ample  home 
encircles  all,  leaving  not  the  solitary,  the  sinner,  or  the  sad 
without  a  place  in  the  mansions  of  his  house  ;  has  wrapped 
us  in  the  Divine  immensity  without  fear,  and  bid  us  claim 
the  warm  sun  in  heaven  as  our  Paternal  hearth,  and  the 
vault  of  the  pure  sky  as  our  protecting  roof. 

We  have  spoken  of  Christ's  personal  representation,  in 
his  own  character  and  practical  life,  of  the  spirit  of  the  Di- 
vine Mind,  and  have  explained  how  in  this  way  we  believe 
that  he  has  "  shown  us  the  Father."  This,  however,  is  not 
all.  His  direct  teachings,  perfectly  in  harmony  with  his  life, 
confirm  and  extend  its  lessons ;  and  we  listen,  with  venerat- 
ing faith,  to  his  inimitable  exposition  of  all  divine  truth. 
Purity  of  soul  makes  the  most  wonderful  discoveries  in  heav- 
enly things,  and  is  indeed  the  pellucid  atmosphere  through 
which  the  remoter  lights  of  God  are  "  spiritually  discerned." 
As  we  have  said,  the  knowledge  of  him  which  any  mind  (be 
it  of  man  or  of  angel)  may  possess,  is  just  proportioned  to 
its  sanctity  :  and  our  Messiah,  having  the  very  highest  sanc- 
tity, was  enabled  to  speak  with  the  highest  and  most  au- 
thoritative knowledge,  and  was  inspired  to  be  our  infallible 
guide,  not  perhaps  in  trivial  questions  of  literary  interpre- 
tation, or  scientific  fact,  or  historical  expectation,  but  in  all 
the  deep  and  solemn  relations  on  which  our  sanctification 
and  immortal  blessedness  depend.  And  both  to  his  person 
and  to  his  teachings  do  the  miracles  of  his  life,  the  tragedy 
of  his  crucifixion,  and  the  glory  of  his  resurrection,  articu- 
lately call  the  attention  of  all  ages,  as  with  the  voice  of 
God.  In  every  way  we  discern  in  Christ  the  transcendent 


196  FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH. 

revelation  of  the  Most  High.  We  are  told,  that  this  is  to 
dishonor  Christ.  We  think  it,  however,  a  more  glorious 
honor  to  him,  to  be  thus  indissolubly  folded  within  the  in- 
timacy of  the  Father's  love,  than  to  be  blasted  by  the  tempest 
of  his  wrath ;  nor  could  we  ever  trust  and  venerate  a  God 
who  —  like  the  barbarians  in  the  judgment-hall — could 
smite  that  meek  lamb  of  heaven  with  one  rude  blow  of 
vengeance. 

V.  But  we  hasten  to  observe,  finally,  that  WE  HAVE  FAITH 
in  HUMAN  IMMORTALITY,  as  exemplified  in  the  heavenly  life 
to  which  Jesus  ascended.  To  assure  us  of  this  great  truth, 
it  were  enough  that  Jesus  assumed  and  taught  it ;  that  it 
was  his  great  postulate,  essential  to  the  development  of  his 
own  character,  and  to  all  his  views  of  the  purposes  of  life,  — 
an  integrant  part  of  his  insight  into  human  responsibility 
and  his  version  of  human  duty.  For  if  he  did  not  teach  the 
reality  of  God  in  this  matter,  sure  we  are  that  none  else  has 
ever  done  so ;  and  most  of  all,  that  the  sceptics  who  doubt 
the  heavenly  futurity  have  no  claim  to  take  his  place  as 
our  instructors.  For  if  this  hope  were  a  delusion,  who  would 
the  mistaken  be  ?  Will  any  one  tell  me,  that  the  voluptuary, 
who,  from  abandonment  to  the  body,  cannot  imagine  the 
perpetuity  of  the  spirit ;  —  that  the  selfish,  who,  looking  at 
the  meanness  of  his  own  nature,  sees  nothing  worth  immor- 
talizing ;  —  that  the  contented  Epicurean,  who,  in  prudent 
quietude  of  sense  and  sympathy,  finds  adequate  satisfaction 
in  this  mortal  life  ;  —  that  the  cold  speculator,  who  looks  at 
the  fouler  side  of  human  nature,  and,  showing  us  on  its 
features  the  pallor  of  sensualism  or  the  hard  lines  of  guilt, 
deems  it  less  fit  for  the  duration  of  the  angel  than  for  the 
extinction  of  the  brute  ;  —  that  these  men  are  right ;  while 
Christ,  who  walked  without  despair  through  the  deepest 
haunts  of  sin,  with  faith  that  succumbed  not  to  wretchedness 
and  wrong,  but  stood  up  and  conquered  them ;  who  em- 
braced our  whole  nature  in  his  love,  and  displayed  it  in  its 
perfectness ;  who  lived  and  died  in  its  utmost  service,  with 


FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH.  197 

prayers  and  tears  and  blood;  to  whom  our  most  binding 
affections  cling  almost  with  worship  as  the  holiest  glory  of 
our  world  ;  —  that  he  could  be  under  a  delusion  here  ?  —  that 
when,  sinking  in  trustful  death,  he  laid  his  meek  head  to 
rest  on  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he  was  cast  off,  and  dropped 
on  the  cold  clod  ?  —  that  he  sobbed  into  the  Infinite  by  night 
with  a  vain  love  that  met  no  answer  ?  —  that  God  rather 
takes  part  in  his  providence  with  the  mean-souled,  the 
cynic,  the  morbid,  the  selfish?  There  is  no  greater  impos- 
sibility than  this,  on  which  evidence  can  fall  back.  Nay, 
we  confess  that,  even  apart  from  his  doctrine,  the  mere 
mortal  history  of  Christ  would  have  settled  with  us  the  ques- 
tion of  futurity.  For  the  great  essential  to  this  belief  is  a 
sufficiently  elevated  estimate  of  human  nature :  no  man  will 
ever  deny  its  immortality  who  has  a  deep  impression  of  ijs 
capacity  for  so  great  a  destiny.  And  this  impression  is  so 
vividly  given  by  the  life  of  Jesus,  —  he  presents  an  image 
of  the  soul  so  grand,  so  divine,  —  as  utterly  to  dwarf  all  the 
dimensions  of  its  present  career,  and  to  necessitate  a  heaven 
for  its  reception.  At  all  events,  it  is  allowable  to  feel  this, 
when  we  see  that  this  natural  sequel  was  actually  and  per- 
ceptibly appended ;  that  this  "  Holy  One  of  God  could  not 
see  corruption,"  but  rose,  above  the  reach  of  mortal  ill,  to 
the  world  where  now  he  welcomes  the  souls  of  the  sainted 
dead.  That  other  life  we  take  to  be  a  scene  for  the 
mind's  ampler  and  ampler  development,  apart  from  those 
animal  and  selfish  elements  which  now  deform  and  degrade 
it  by  their  excess.  And  this  alone,  if  there  were  nothing 
else,  would  render  it  a  life  of  awful  retribution.  For  to  the 
wicked,  what  is  this  loss  of  "  the  natural  man,"  but  total 
bereavement  and  utter  death  of  joy  ?  —  what  to  the  good,  but 
a  glad  and  sacred  birth  ?  —  to  the  one,  a  Promethean  exile 
on  a  mid-rock  in  the  ocean  of  night,  under  the  bite  of  a 
remorse  that  gnaws  impalpably,  felt  always,  but  never  seen, 
—  to  the  other,  a  welcome  to  the  loving  homes  of  the  blest, 
amid  the  sunshine  of  the  everlasting  hills  ?  Yet  precisely 
because  we  believe  in  Retribution,  do  we  trust  in  Restoration. 
17* 


198  FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH. 

The  very  abhorrence  with  which  a  man's  better  mind  ever 
looks  upon  his  worse,  while  it  inflicts  his  punishment,  begins 
his  cure  :  and  we  can  never  allow  that  God  will  suspend  this 
natural  law  impressed  by  himself  on  our  spiritual  constitu- 
tion, merely  in  order  to  stop  the  process  of  moral  recovery, 
and  specially  enable  him  to  maintain  the  eternity  of  torment 
and  of  sin.  And  so,  beyond  the  dark  close  of  life  rise  before 
us  the  awful  contrasts  of  retribution  ;  and  in  the  farther  dis- 
tance, the  dim  but  glorious  vision  of  a  purified,  redeemed,  and 
progressive  universe  of  souls. 

Here,  then,  are  our  Five  Points  of  Christianity,  considered 
as  a  system  of  positive  religious  doctrine,  viz.:  —  1st.  The 
truth  of  the  Moral  Perceptions  in  man,  —  not,  as  the  de- 
generate churches  of  our  day  teach,  their  pravity  and  blind- 
ness ;  2dly.  The  Moral  Perfection  of  the  character  of  God,  — 
in  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  his  Arbitrary  Decrees  and 
Absolute  Self-will ;  3dly.  The  Natural  awakening  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  within  us,  —  rather  than  its  Preternatural 
communication  from  without;  4thly.  Christ,  the  pure  Image 
and  highest  Revelation  of  the  Eternal  Father,  —  not  his  Vic- 
tim and  his  Contrast ;  5thly.  A  universal  Immortality  after 
the  model  of  Christ's  heavenly  life ;  an  immortality  not  of 
capricious  and  select  salvation,  with  unimaginable  torment  as 
the  general  lot,  but,  for  all,  a  life  of  spiritual  development, 
of  retribution,  of  restoration. 

To  the  Moral  doctrine  which,  in  our  view,  the  Gospel 
conjoins  with  this  religious  system,  it  is  impossible  for  us 
at  present  to  advert.  Suffice  to  say  that,  with  Paul,  we  ex- 
claim, "  not  Law,  but  Love  "  :  —  love  to  God,  to  Christ,  not 
simply  for  what  they  have  done  for  us,  but  chiefly  for  what 
they  are  in  themselves ;  —  nothing  like  the  narrow-hearted 
gratitude  for  an  exclusive  salvation,  but  a  moral  affection 
awakened  by  their  holiness,  rectitude,  truth,  and  mercy, — 
by  the  sublimity  and  spirituality  of  their  designs,  and  the 
sanctity  and  fidelity  of  their  execution  :  love  also  to  man, 
looking  to  him  not  merely  as  a  sentient  being  who  is  to 


FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH.  199 

be  made  happy,  but  as  a  child  of  God,  who  is  to  be  raised 
into  some  likeness  to  the  Divine  image ;  as  a  brother  spirit, 
noble  in  nature,  even  though  sinful  in  fact,  glorious  as  an 
immortal  in  the  eye  of  God,  though  disfigured  by  this  world's 
hardship  or  contempt. 

Does  any  one  ask,  where  we  get  our  system  of  faith  and 
morals  ?  What  are  the  principles  of  reasoning  which  we 
apply  to  nature  and  Scripture  to  extract  it  thence?  The 
reply  would  require  a  volume  of  exposition.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  that  we  think  we  have  full  warrant  for  this  belief  from 
the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament,  with  which  alone  we 
conceive  that  Christians  have  any  practical  concern ;  that, 
in  interpreting  these  Scriptures,  we  follow  the  same  rules 
which  we  should  apply  to  any  other  books  ;  that  not  even 
could  their  instructions  make  us  false  to  that  sense  of  right 
and  wrong  which  God  has  breathed  into  us ;  that  if  they 
taught  respecting  him  anything  unjust  or  unholy,  we  should 
not  accept  it,  but  reject  them ;  and  that,  as  to  the  points  of 
faith  on  which  we  have  dwelt,  some  receive  these  truths 
because  they  were  taught  by  Christ ;  others  receive  Christ 
because  he  taught  these  truths. 

On  this  faith  we  desire  to  take  our  stand,  with  the  firmness, 
but  without  the  ferocity,  of  the  first  Reformers.  Opposing 
churches  tell  us,  we  "  are  so  frigid  " !  Why,  it  is  the  very 
thing  our  own  hearts  had  often  said  to  us  ;  for  there  is  noth- 
ing that  so  promptly  rebukes  the  coldness  of  our  nature  as 
the  warmth  of  our  faith.  We  do  not,  however,  much  ad- 
mire this  mutual  criticism  of  each  other's  temperature  ;  and 
strongly  suspect  the  reality  of  that  earnestness  which  prides 
itself  on  its  own  intensity.  We  must  not  propose  to  assume 
any  artificial  heats,  in  order  to  spite  and  disprove  this  fre- 
quent accusation ;  but  be  resolved,  in  an  age  diseased  with 
pretence,  to  remain  realities,  to  profess  nothing  which  we  do 
not  believe,  to  withhold  nothing  whereon  we  doubt,  to  affect 
nothing  which  we  do  not  feel,  to  promise  nothing  which  we 
will  not  do  ;  holding,  with  Paul,  that  simplicity  and  sincerity 
are  truly  the  godliest  of  things.  With  Heaven's  good  help, 


200  FIVE    POINTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    FAITH. 

may  we  bear  our  testimony  thus ;  deeming  it  a  small  tiling 
to  be  judged  by  man's  judgment ;  and,  with  such  light  and 
heat  as  God  shall  put  into  our  hearts,  delivering  over  our 
portion  of  truth  to  generations  that  will  give  it  a  more  genial 
welcome.  There  is  greatness  in  a  faith,  when  it  can  win  a 
wide  success  or  make  rapid  conquest  over  submissive  minds. 
There  is  a  higher  greatness  in  a  faith  that,  when  God  ordains, 
can  stand  up  and  do  without  success  ;  —  unmoved  amid  the 
pitiless  storms  of  a  fanatic  age  ;  with  foot  upon  the  rock  of  its 
own  fidelity,  and  heart  in  the  serene  Infinite  above  the  canopy 
of  cloud  and  tempest. 


CREED   AND   HERESIES    OF  EARLY   CHRIS- 
TIANITY. 


1.  'Qpiyevovs    <fciAoo-o0ov^iei/a   rf    Kara     itacrutv    alptirfcav 
Origenis  Philosophumena  sive  omnium  hceresium  refutatio. 
E  codice  Parisino  nunc  primum  edidit  Emmanuel  Miller. 
Oxonii:  e  Typographeo  Academico.     1851. 

2.  Hippolytus  and  his  Age  ;  or  the  Doctrine  and  Practice  of 
the  Church  of  Rome  under  Commodus  and  Alexander  Se- 
verus  ;  and  Ancient  and  Modern  Christianity  and  Divinity 
compared.     By  CHRISTIAN   CHARLES   JOSIAS    BUNSEN, 
D.C.L.    In  Four  Volumes.     London.     1852. 

WHEN  a  stranger  knocks  at  the  gate  of  the  Clarendon 
Printing-house,  and  presents  his  petition  for  aid,  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford  maintains  its  national  character  for  good-na- 
tured opulence,  —  gives  its  money  and  signs  its  name,  without 
very  close  inquiry  into  the  case.  The  documents  are  really 
so  respectable  that  there  cannot  be  much  amiss ;  and  a  vener- 
able institution,  well  known  to  be  fond  of  the  house,  cannot  be 
expected  to  go  trudging  through  the  back-lanes  of  history,  and 
exposing  its  nostrils  in  the  purlieus  of  heresy,  in  order  to 
identify  a  literary  petitioner,  evidently  above  all  common  im- 
posture. So  it  supplies  all  his  wants  upon  the  spot,  dresses 
him  handsomely,  and  sends  him  out  into  the  world  as  its  wor- 
thy (though  eccentric)  friend,  the  catechist  of  Alexandria. 
The  introduction,  being  left  at  the  Prussian  Legation,  falls 


202  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

into  the  hands  of  no  stay-at-home  benefactor,  but  of  one  who 
knows  the  by-ways  of  human  life,  and  lias  an  ear  for  the  di- 
alects of  many  a  place.  M.  Bunsen  —  as  Oxford  might  have 
remembered  —  is  not  unacquainted  with  Egypt;  and  no  soon- 
er does  he  raise  his  eyes  from  the  credentials  to  the  person  of 
the  stranger,  than  he  discovers  him  to  be  no  disciple  of  the 
Alexandrine  Clement ;  recognizes  the  accent  of  the  West ;  is 
reminded  of  the  voice  of  Irenreus ;  and,  finally,  being  even 
more  familiar  with  the  Tiber  than  the  Nile,  detects  a  Roman 
beneath  the  mask  of  Origen.  We  do  not  in  the  least  grudge 
the  friend  of  Niebuhr  the  honor  of  a  discovery  which  no  one 
could  turn  to  more  effectual  account ;  but  every  English  schol- 
ar must  feel  mortified  that  the  Imprimatur  of  our  great  Ec- 
clesiastical University  should  appear  on  a  title-page  manifestly 
false ;  that  the  first  reader  should  see  at  a  glance  what  the 
learned  proprietors  had  missed ;  and  that  their  Editio  Prin- 
ceps  of  a  recovered  monument  of  Church  antiquity  should  be 
superseded  within  a  year  or  two  of  its  publication.  They  are 
not  principals,  it  is  true,  but  only  secondaries  to  the  Editor,  in 
the  commission  of  this  error :  still,  a  lay  bibliographer  might 
reasonably  expect,  in  resorting  for  aid  to  so  renowned  and 
reverend  a  body,  that  his  own  judgment  would  be  kept  in 
check ;  and  their  very  consent  to  issue  the  work  implies  some 
critical  opinion  of  its  value,  as  derived  from  age  and  author- 
ship. Whether  they  are  called  upon  to  adopt  at  once  M. 
Bunsen's  proposed  title-page,  and  substitute  the  name  of  Hip- 
polytus  for  that  of  Origen,  we  will  not  say ;  but  that  the  pres- 
ent title  gives  the  book  to  the  wrong  author,  seems  placed 
beyond  the  reach  of  doubt. 

M.  Emmanuel  Miller,  one  of  the  curators  of  the  National 
Library  in  Paris,  was  the  first  to  make  himself  acquainted 
with  the  contents  of  this  work,  and  to  appreciate  their  impor- 
tance. Among  the  manuscripts  under  his  care  was  one  on 
cotton  paper  of  the  fourteenth  century,  which  had  been 
brought  from  Mount  Athos  in  1842,  by  M.  Mynoides  Mynas, 
a  Greek  agent  employed  by  the  French  government  to 
search  the  neglected  treasures  of  that  celebrated  spot.  The 


OP   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  203 

superscription,  "On  all  Heresies,"  was  not  inviting;  but  on 
turning  over  the  leaves,  some  lines,  unknown  before,  of  Pin- 
dar and  of  another  lyric  poet,  were  found  and  copied ;  and  the 
value  of  these  excerpts  being  ascertained,  M.  Miller's  atten- 
tion was  directed  to  the  body  of  the  treatise  containing  them. 
The  treatise  had  already  been  described,  in  the  Moniteur  of 
the  5th  of  January,  1844,  as  a  Refutation  of  all  Heresies,  in 
ten  books,  but  with  the  first  three  missing,  as  well  as  the  con- 
clusion of  the  whole ;  and  he  soon  became  aware,  that,  of  the 
three  missing  books,  the  first  already  existed,  and  had  been 
printed  under  the  name  of  "  Philosophumena,"  in  the  edi- 
tions of  Origen's  works.  Its  very  title  is  found  in  the  manu- 
script at  the  end  of  the  fourth  book,  and  denotes  that  the  por- 
tion of  the  work  there  concluded  completes  the  sketch  of  phi- 
losophical systems,  which  the  author  prefixes  to  his  account  of 
ecclesiastical  aberrations ;  and  there  are  mutual  references, 
backwards  and  forwards,  between  the  printed  book  and  the 
manuscript,  which  leave  no  doubt  that  the  latter  is  a  sequel 
to  the  former.  The  Editor,  therefore,  has  very  properly  re- 
printed the  "  Philosophumena  "  as  the  commencement  of  the 
newly  recovered  work ;  which  thus  exhibits  a  regular  plan, 
and  consists  of  two  parts,  viz. :  first,  four  books,  —  of  which 
the  second  and  third  are  lost,  —  expounding  the  Pagan  phi- 
losophies, especially  the  Greek,  from  which,  the  author  con- 
tends, the  various  heresies  of  Christendom  are  mere  plagia- 
risms ;  then  six  books,  containing  an  account,  in  an  order  pre- 
vailingly historical,  of  thirty  or  thirty-two  heresies,  supported 
by  extracts  from  their  standard  writings,  and  wound  up  in  the 
recapitulary  book  at  the  end  by  the  writer's  own  profession  of 
faith.  Now  who  is  the  author  ? 

Not  Origen ;  for,  as  Huet  had  already  remarked  respecting 
the  "  Philosophumena,"  the  writer  speaks  of  himself  in  terms 
implying  an  episcopal  position ;  and,  in  the  ninth  book,  he 
gives  an  account  of  transactions  in  Rome,  extending  over 
many  years,  in  which  he  was  evidently  an  eyewitness  and  an 
actor.  While  the  scene  is  thus  laid  at  a  distance  from  Ori- 
gen's sphere,  and  the  date  also  of  the  personal  matter  runs 


204  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

back  into  his  boyhood,  the  cast  of  the  theological  doctrine  is 
wholly  different  from  his  ;  for  instance,  in  a  certain  "  Treatise 
on  the  Universe,"  to  which  the  author  refers  as  his  own,  and 
of  which  a  fragment  is  preserved,  the  penal  condition  of  the 
wicked  after  death  is  said  to  be  immutable  ;  *  but  Origen,  it  is 
well  known,  taught  a  doctrine  of  final  restoration.  Add  to 
this,  that  no  such  work  as  the  present  is  attributed  to  Origen 
by  any  ancient  witness,  and  the  case  against  his  name  may  be 
regarded  as  complete. 

The  evidence  which  disappoints  this  claim  narrows  also  our 
choice  of  others.  The  personal  transactions  to  which  we 
have  referred  took  place  at  Rome,  while  Zephyrinus  and  his 
successor,  Callistus,  presided  over  the  Christian  community 
there,  that  is,  during  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  third  ce^ 
tury.  We  must,  therefore,  look  for  our  author  among  the 
metropolitan  clergymen  of  that  period.  Still  closer  is  the  cir- 
cle drawn  by  the  fact,  that  the  writer  largely  borrows  from 
the  treatise  of  Irenaeus  on  the  same  subject  ;  and,  though  vast- 
ly improving  on  that  foolish  production,  and  copiously  contrib- 
uting fresh  materials,  betrays  the  general  affinity  of  thought 
which  unites  the  stronger  disciple  with  the  feebler  master. 

The  problem  then  being  to  find  a  pupil  of  the  Bishop  of 
Lyons  among  the  ecclesiastics  of  Rome,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  third  century,  two  names  are  given  in  as  answering  the 
conditions,  —  those  of  Hippolytus,  a  suburban  clergyman,  and 
of  Caius,  whose  charge  lay  within  the  city  itself.  In  order  to 
vindicate  the  claim  of  the  first,  it  has  been  necessary  for  M. 
Bunsen  to  prove  that  his  locality  is  right  ;  and  that  the  "  Por- 
tus  Romse,"  of  which  he  was  bishop,  was  not,  as  Le  Moyne 


*  rois  pfv  fv  7rpd£acri  BiKaio>s  TTJV  diftiov  dnoXava-iv  Trapatrxo 
Tais  Be  TO>V  (pav\a>v  fpacrrdis  TT]V  aluiviov  KoKacriv  cnravfi  pavros.  Kat 
TOVTOIS  fJLtv  TO  jrvp  affftf&Tov  8iafifV(i  Kal  dreXeureToi',  ovcuAf  £  Of  ns 
ffiTrupos,  fJif]  T(\fvru>v,  fJLrjb'f  (rcii)fj.a  8ia(f)dfipa>v,  dtraixrrai  Of  oovvrj  eK 
<ra>[iaTOS  fKppdcro'cov  Trapap-fixi.  TOVTOVS  oi^  virvos  avairavafi.,  ov 
vv£  7rapr)yopT)<Tfi,  ov  ddvaros  rrjs  KoXatrfcor  aTroXi'trei,  ov  irapaK\rj(ris 
<rvyyfvu>v  p.fcriTfvcrdvT(i>v  ovrjcrei.  S.  Hippol.  adv.  Graecos.  Fabricii  Hipp. 
Op.  p.  222. 


OF    EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  205 

and  Cave  had  groundlessly  supposed,  the  Arabian  "Portus 
Romanus  "  of  the  district  of  Aden,  but  the  new  harbor  made, 
or  at  least  enlarged,  by  Trajan,  on  the  northern  bank  of  the 
Tiber,  immediately  opposite  to  Ostia.  That  he  suffered  mar- 
tyrdom there,  and  was  buried  in  a  cemetery  on  the  Tiburtine 
road,  is  generally  admitted,  on  the  evidence  of  Prudentius, 
who  has  left  a  poem  describing  his  memorial  chapel  on  that 
spot,  and  of  a  statue  of  him,  seated  in  a  cathedra,  which  was 
dug  up  there  three  hundred  years  ago,  and  now  stands  in  the 
library  of  the  Vatican.  It  is  certainly  perplexing  to  find  Je- 
rome avowing  ignorance  of  the  see  over  which  he  presided,  if, 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  he  was  active  at  the  centre  of  the 
Christian  world ;  and  not  less  so  to  discover  in  Rome  itself, 
nay,  in  a  Pope,  or  his  transcriber,  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, the  impression  that  his  scene  of  labor  had  been  in  Ara- 
bia ;  and  under  the  influence  of  these  facts  it  has  been  sup- 
posed that  though,  coming  to  Italy,  he  had  fallen  among  the 
martyrs  of  the  West,  he  ought  to  be  reckoned  among  the 
bishops  of  the  East.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  reasons 
preponderate  in  favor  of  his  residence,  as  "  Episcopus  Portu- 
ensis,"  within  the  presbytery  of  Rome.  The  title  itself  is  an 
old  one,  still  always  assigned  to  some  dignitary  of  the  curia, 
and,  no  doubt,  deriving  its  origin  from  the  time  when  the 
Northern  Harbor  of  the  Tiber  —  of  which  in  the  ninth  cen- 
tury, scarce  a  trace  was  left  —  was  a  flourishing  emporium. 
The  name  of  Hippolytus  is  associated  by  tradition  with  the 
spot ;  it  is  given,  our  author  assures  us,  to  a  certain  tower, 
near  Fiumicino ;  and  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries,  a  basil- 
ica of  St.  Hippolytus  was  restored  at  Portus  by  Leo  III.  and 
IV.  An  episcopal  palace  still  remains.  By  acute  and  skilful 
combinations,  effected  with  evidence  scanty  as  a  whole,  and 
suspicious  in  every  part,  M.  Bunsen  has  endeavored  to  re- 
produce the  historical  image  of  Hippolytus.  His  office  of 
"  bishop  "  implied  simply  the  charge  of  the  single  congrega- 
tion at  Portus ;  the  members-  of  that  congregation  were  the 
"  plebs "  committed  to  his  supervision ;  the  city  or  village  in 
which  they  lived  was  his  diocese.  His  vicinity  to  the  great 
18 


206  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

capital  drew  him,  however,  into  a  wider  circle  of  duties.  For 
while  Rome  itself  was  divided  into  several  ecclesiastical  dis- 
tricts, each  of  which  had  its  own  clergyman  and  lay  deacons, 
the  suburban  bishops  were  associated  with  these  officers  to 
form  a  committee  of  management,  or  presbytery,  presided 
over  by  the  metropolitan.  By  his  seat  at  this  board,  he  was 
kept  in  living  contact  with  all  the  most  stirring  interests  of 
Christendom,  which,  wherever  their  origin  might  be,  found 
their  way  to  the  imperial  city,  and  more  and  more  sought 
their  equilibrium  there.  At  a  commercial  seaport,  his  own 
congregation  would  largely  consist  of  temporary  settlers  and 
mercantile  agents,  Greek  brokers,  Jewish  bankers,  African 
importers,  to  whom  Italy  was  a  lodging-house  rather  than  a 
home ;  and  by  the  continual  influx  of  foreigners  he  would 
hear  tidings  of  the  remotest  churches,  and  carry  to  the  cleri- 
cal meetings  in  the  city  the  newest  gossip  of  all  the  heresies. 
Possibly  this  position,  with  its  opportunities  of  various  inter- 
course, may  have  contributed  to  form  in  him  the  agreeable  ad- 
dress, and  faculty  of  eloquent  speech,  which  tradition  ascribes 
to  him ;  and  induced  him  to  commence  the  practice  of  writing 
with  studious  care  the  homilies  which  were  to  be  delivered  in 
the  congregation.  At  all  events  he  is  the  first  of  whom  we 
distinctly  hear  as  a  great  preacher.  His  period  extends,  it  is 
supposed,  from  the  reign  of  Commodus  (180  -  193)  to  the  first 
year  of  Maximin  (235  -  6)  ;  and  so  brought  him  into  the 
same  presbytery-room  with  five  popes,  —  Victor  (187-198)  ; 
Zephyrinus  (201-218);  Callistus  (219-222);  Urbanus 
(223  -  230)  ;  and  Pontianus  (230  -  235)  ;  with  the  last  of 
whom  he  shared,  in  the  last  year  of  his  life,  a  cruel  exile  to 
Sardinia,  and  returned  only  to  fall  a  victim  to  fresh  informa- 
tions, and  suffer  martyrdom  by  drowning  in  a  canal.  It  can- 
not be  denied  that,  in  order  to  recover  this  picture  of  Ilip- 
polytus,  and  still  more  in  order  to  fix  his  literary  position,  the 
materials  of  evidence  have  to  be  dealt  with  in  somewhat 
arbitrary  fashion,  and  their  lacunae  to  be  filled  by  conjecture. 
Prudentius,  for  instance,  is  called  as  an  historical  witness,  yet 
convicted  of  fable  in  much  of  what  he  says.  His  poem 


OP   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  207 

declares  that  at  one  time  Hippolytus  had  supported  Novatus 
in  his  attempt  to  close  the  gates  of  repentance  against  the 
Lapsi,  but  had  been  reconciled  to  the  catholic  doctrine  before 
he  died.  He  must  in  this  case  have  joined  in  the  opposition 
raised  by  Novatianus  (in  251)  to  the  election  of  Cornelius  to 
the  papacy,  and  have  died  in  the  Decian  persecution,  which 
continued  till  the  year  257.  Moreover,  the  painting  seen  by 
the  Spanish  versifier  on  the  walls  of  the  memorial  chapel 
introduces  us  to  so  ridiculous  a  story,  as  only  to  show  how 
completely  the  martyrological  legends  had  already  escaped  all 
the  restraints  of  history.  In  this  fresco  the  mythical  fate  of 
Ilippolytus,  the  son  of  Theseus,  is  transferred  to  the  Roman 
presbyter :  he  is  represented  as  torn  to  pieces  by  horses ; 
while  the  faithful  follow  to  pick  up  his  limbs  and  hair,  and 
sponge  away  the  blood  upon  the  ground.  If  the  sanctuary 
exhibiting  this  scene  received  the  martyr's  remains  from  their 
original  resting-place  as  early  as  the  time  of  Constantine,  — 
and  such  is  our  author's  opinion,  —  into  what  a  state  of  degra- 
dation had  the  history  of  Hippolytus  sunk  in  three  quarters 
of  a  century !  And  if  already  memorial  painting  could  thus 
impudently  lie,  how  can  we  better  trust  the  statue,  admitted 
to  be  later  still  ?  Yet  this  statue,  on  whose  side  is  a  list  of 
the  writings  of  Hippolytus,  is  appealed  to  in  determining  the 
martyr's  written  productions,  as  the  painted  chapel  in  evidence 
of  facts  in  his  personal  career.  We  fully  admit  the  success 
of  M.  Bunsen  in  eliciting  a  possible  result  from  a  mass  of 
intricate  and  tangled  conditions,  and  presenting  us  with  a 
highly  interesting  personage.  But  perhaps,  as  the  venerable 
image  of  the  good  bishop  has  grown  hi  clearness  before  his 
eye,  and  attracted  his  affection  more  and  more,  the  very 
vividness  of  the  conception  may  have  rendered  him  insensible 
to  the  precariousness  of  the  proof.  Ecclesiastical  fancy,  in  its 
unrestrained  career,  has  torn  his  personality  to  pieces,  and 
left  the  disjecta  membra  so  rudely  scattered  on  the  strand  of 
history,  that  we  almost  doubt  the  power  of  any  critical  jEscu- 
lapius  to  restore  him  to  the  world  again. 

At  the  same  board  of  church  councillors  with  Hippolytus 


208  CREED  AND  HERESIES 

sat  another  Xoytturaro?  avrjp*  the  presbyter  Gains ;  and  as  an 
urban  clergyman,  he  would  be  more  constantly  there  than  his 
suburban  brother,  separated  by  a  distance  of  eighteen  miles. 
To  form  any  living  image  of  him  from  the  scanty  notices  of 
him  which  begin  with  Eusebius  and  end  with  Photius,  is  quite 
impossible.  In  one  respect  only  do  the  personal  character- 
istics attributed  to  him  distinguish  him  from  the  bishop  of 
Portus.  He  was  a  strenuous  opponent  of  the  peculiarities 
favored  by  the  Christians  of  Lesser  Asia,  and  especially  of 
the  claims  to  prophetic  gifts,  and  the  appeal  to  clairvoyant 
skill,  by  Montanus  and  his  followers.  With  one  of  these,  by 
name  Proclus,  he  held  a  disputation ;  from  which  Eusebius 
has  preserved  a  passage  or  two,  showing,  in  conjunction  with 
the  title,  not  very  intelligibly  assigned  to  him,  of  "  Bishop  of 
the  Gentiles,"  that  he  belonged  to  the  most  advanced  anti- 
Jewish  party  in  the  Church,  lamented  the  grossness  of  the 
popular  millenarian  dreams,  vindicated  the  apostolic  dignity 
of  the  Roman  against  the  pretensions  of  the  Eastern  Chris- 
tianity, and  disowned  the  Epi.stle  to  the  Hebrews.  This 
feature  in  the  figure  of  Caius,  though  constituting  the  distinc- 
tion, does  not,  however,  necessarily  oppose  him  to  Hippolytus, 
whose  attitude  towards  the  Montani.sts  may  not  have  been 
very  different,  but  only  less  positively  marked.  Still  the 
suspicions  directed  against  the  two  men  are  of  an  opposite 
kind :  with  Hippolytus,  the  difficulty  is  to  set  him  clear  of 
sympathy  with  Montanism  ;  f  with  Caius,  to  prevent  his  being 
classed  with  its  unmeasured  opponents,  the  Alogi.f  And  a 
report  even  reaches  us,  that  among  the  Chaldean  Christians 
there  exists,  or  did  exist  in  the  fourteenth  century,  a  con- 
troversial treatise  of  Hippolytus  against  Caius.  § 


*  Euseb.  H.  E.,  VI.  20. 

t  Attributed  to  him  by  Neander,  Kirch.  Geschichte,  I.  iii.  1150;  and 
Schwegler,  Montanismus,  p.  224. 

J  Storr  places  him  at  their  head,  Zweck  der  Evang.  Geschichte,  p.  63; 
and  Eichhorn  associates  him  with  them,  Kinleitung  in  das  N.  T.,  II.  414. 

§  See  the  notice  of  the  Nestorian  Ebed  Jesti,  in  Asseman's  Bibl.  Orient. 
III.  i.  ap.  Gieseler,  k.  9,  §  63. 


OP   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  209 

Between  these  two  men,  so  similar  in  position,  and  not, 
perhaps,  unused  to  sharp  argument  face  to  face,  springs  up,  at 
the  end  of  all  these  ages,  a  rival  claim  to  property  in  the 
"  Refutation  of  all  the  Heresies."  The  chief  counsel  for 
Hippolytus,  besides  our  author,  are  the  eminent  Professors 
Jacobi,  Duncker,  and  Schneidewin,  —  all,  we  believe,  belong- 
ing to  the  Neander  school  of  theology ;  and  as  the  last  two 
are  about  to  edit  the  work  anew,  and  probably  to  give  it  its 
final  form,  their  opinion  of  its  authorship  may  be  expected  to 
prevail.  The  other  side,  however,  advocated  by  Dr.  Fessler, 
is  sustained  by  perhaps  the  greatest  of  living  historical  critics, 
F.  C.  Baur,  representative  of  the  much-abused  Tubingen 
school.  Into  so  intricate  a  question  we  might  be  excused  for 
inviting  our  readers,  had  we  anything  fresh  to  offer  towards 
its  solution ;  but  the  chief  impression  we  have  brought  from 
its  study  is  one  of  astonishment  at  the  extreme  positiveness 
with  which  the  learned  men  on  either  side  affirm  their  own 
conclusion.  A  more  equal  balance  of  evidence  we  never 
remember  to  have  met  with  in  any  similar  research  ;  and  the 
faint  and  slender  preponderance  which  alone  the  scale  can 
ever  exhibit,  amusingly  contrasts  with  the  triumphant  asser- 
tion, of  both  sets  of  disputants',  that  not  a  reasonable  doubt 
remains.  The  leading  points  of  M.  Bunsen's  case  are  these. 
A  work  "  On  all  Heresies  "  is  attributed  to  Hippolytus,  and 
in  no  instance  to  Caius,  by  Eusebius,  Jerome,  Epiphanius,  and 
Peter  of  Alexandria,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century. 
Such  a  book  was  still  extant  in  the  ninth  century ;  for  Pho- 
tius,  the  celebrated  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  has  given  us 
an  account  of  its  contents  in  the  journal  and  epitome  of  his 
studies  which  he  has  left  us.  On  comparing  his  report  with 
the  newly  discovered  book,  the  identity  of  the  two  works  is 
established  in  some  important  respects :  the  number  and  con- 
cluding term  of  the  series  of  heresies  are  the  same ;  they 
both  of  them  include  materials  taken  from  Irenseus,  while 
reversing  his  order  of  treatment.  Further,  in  the  newly 
found  treatise  reference  is  made  by  the  author  to  other  works 
of  his,  in  which  he  has  discussed  certain  points  of  early  He- 
18* 


210  CUBED    AND    HERESIES 

brew  chronology  in  proving  the  antiquity  of  the  Abrahamic 
race.  Now,  Eusebius  was  acquainted  with  a  certain  "  Chroni- 
cle "  of  Hippolytus,  brought  down  to  the  first  year  of  Alex- 
ander Severus;  and  such  a  chronicle,  in  a  Latin  translation, 
is  found  in  Fabricius's  edition  of  Hippolytus,  only  that  its  list 
of  Roman  emperors  terminates,  not  with  the  beginning,  but 
with  the  end,  of  Severus's  reign.  It  has,  however,  in  common 
with  our  work,  a  peculiar  number  of  tribes,  —  viz.  seventy- 
two,  derived  from  Noah.  Thus,  the  author  of  the  "  Here- 
sies "  and  of  the  "  Chronicle  "  would  appear  to  be  the  same, 
and,  according  to  Eusebius,  to  be  Hippolytus.  Lastly,  both 
in  our  new  work,  and  also  in  a  book  called  the  "  Labyrinth," 
written  against  some  Unitarians  of  the  second  century,  refer- 
ence is  made  to  a  treatise  "  On  the  Universe,"  which  the 
author  mentions  as  his  own  production.  By  printing  a  frag- 
ment of  this  last  in  his  edition  of  "  Hippolytus,"  Fabricius  has 
shown  to  what  name  all  three  should,  in  his  judgment,  be  set 
down ;  and  that  they  cannot  be  given  to  Caius  is  rendered 
evident  by  the  occurrence,  in  the  fragment,  of  certain  Apoca- 
lyptic fictions  inconsistent  with  his  rejection  of  the  Book  of 
Revelations.  Moreover,  the  list  of  works  on  the  statue  of 
Hippolytus  includes  a  disquisition  "  Against  the  Greeks  and 
against  Plato,  or  Respecting  the  Universe." 

What  can  be  said  to  weaken  so  strong  a  case?  Two 
doubts  at  once  arise  upon  it,  which  we  find  it  by  no  means 
easy  to  set  aside.  Granted,  Hippolytus  wrote  a  book  "  On 
all  Heresies  "  ;  is  it  the  same  which  is  now  delivered  into  our 
hands  ?  One  medium  of  comparison  we  possess,  enabling  us 
to  place  the  original  and  the  present  book,  for  a  short  space, 
side  by  side.  The  very  Peter  of  Alexandria  who  is  one  of 
the  early  witnesses  called  on  Hippolytus's  behalf  has  handed 
down  to  us  a  passage  or  two  (preserved  in  the  Paschal  Chron- 
icle) from  the  book  which  he  attests,  with  a  distinct  reference 
to  the  place  where  they  are  to  be  found.  We  turn  to  the 
right  chapter,  and  the  passages  are  not  there.  Nor  is  it  a 
mere  want  of  verbal  agreement  which  we  have  to  regret ;  the 
same  topic — the  controversy  about  the  time  of  Easter  —  is 


OF    EAKLY    CHRISTIANITY.  211 

treated  ;  the  same  side  —  that  of  the  Western  Church  —  is 
taken,  in  both  instances  ;  but  the  arguments  are  different,  and 
so  far  irreconcilable,  that  no  one  who  had  command  of  that 
which  Peter  gives  would  ever  resort  to  the  feebler  one  which 
our  work  contains.  With  the  dauntless  ingenuity  of  German 
criticism  M.  Bunsen  makes  a  virtue  of  necessity,  and  en- 
deavors to  convert  this  unfortunate  discrepancy  into  a  fresh 
proof  of  identity.  He  thinks  that,  in  this  and  some  other 
parts,  our  work  is  but  a  clumsy  abstract  of  Hippolytus's 
original,  which  the  citations  of  Peter  enable  us  to  recover 
and  complete.  This,  however,  is  a  plea  which,  it  strikes  us, 
damages  his  case  as  much  by  success  as  it  could  by  failure. 
For  if  the  book  presented  to  us  by  the  Clarendon  Press 
reflects  the  original  no  better  than  would  appear  from  this 
only  sample  which  it  is  in  our  power  to  test,  it  may  indeed  be 
a  degenerate  descendant  from  the  pen  of  Hippolytus ;  but  all 
reliable  identity  is  lost,  and  the  traces  of  his  hand  are  no 
longer  recoverable.  The  second  doubt  is  this  :  —  Is  the  work 
which  Photius  read  the  same  that  has  now  been  rescued  ?  Of 
the  few  descriptive  marks  supplied  by  the  patriarch,  there  are 
as  many  absent  from  our  work  as  present  in  it.  The  treatise 
which  he  read  was  a  "  little  book  "  or  "  tract"  as  Lardner  calls 
it  (/3t/3At8dptov),  a  word  which  can  scarcely  apply  to  a  volume 
extending  (as  ours  would,  if  complete)  to  four  hundred  and 
twenty  octavo  pages.  M.  Bunsen  cuts  down  this  number  to 
two  hundred  and  fifty,  by  supposing  Photius  to  have  only  the 
last  six  books,  containing  the  historical  survey,  without  the 
groundwork  of  the  philosophical  deduction,  of  the  heresies. 
The  curtailment,  if  conceded,  seems  scarcely  adequate  to  its 
purpose,  and  appears  to  us  a  very  questionable  conjecture. 
The  manuscript,  stripped  of  the  first  four  books,  would  want 
the  very  basis  of-  the  whole  argument ;  and,  if  such  a  mutila- 
tion were  conceivable,  it  is  impossible  that  Photius  should  fail 
to  observe  and  mention  it ;  for  the  fifth  book  opens,  not  like 
an  independent  treatise,  but  with  a  summary  statement  of 
what  has  been  accomplished  "  in  the  four  books  preceding 
this"  Again,  Photius  mentions  the  Dositheans  as  the  first 


212  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

set  of  heretics  discussed ;  whereas  their  name  does  not  occur 
at  all,  if  we  remember  right,  in  our  work,  and  their  place  is 
occupied  by  the  "  Ophites."  M.  Bunsen  treats  this  as  a  mere 
inaccuracy  of  expression  on  the  part  of  Photius,  who  meant, 
by  the  name  "  Dositheans,"  to  indicate  the  same  "  earliest 
Judaizing  schools "  that  are  better  described  as  "  Ophites." 
The  name,  however,  is  so  unsuitable  to  this  purpose,  that  it 
would  be  a  strange  wilfulness  in  the  learned  patriarch  to  sub- 
stitute it  for  the  language  of  the  author  he  describes.  He 
could  not  be  ignorant  that  Dositheus,  Simon,  Menander,  were 
the  three  founders  of  the  Samaritan  sect,  exponents  of  the 
same  doctrine,  if  not  even  reputed  avatars  of  the  same  divine 
essence ;  *  and  if  he  had  applied  the  name  Dositheans  to 
any  of  the  heretics  enumerated  in  our  work,  it  would  assured- 
ly have  been  to  the  followers  of  Simon,  who  stand  fourth  in 
the  series  of  thirty-two,  and  not  to  Phrygian  serpent-worship- 
pers, who  commence  the  list.  Further,  the  author  whom 
Photius  read  stated  that  his  book  was  a  synopsis  of  the  Lec- 
tures of  Irenaeus.  In  our  work  no  such  statement  occurs ; 
and  the  use  made  of  Irenaeus  does  not  agree,  either  in  quan- 
tity or  character,  with  the  substance  of  the  assertion.  And, 
lastly,  the  patriarch's  Hippolytus  said  "  some  things  which 
are  not  quite  correct;  for  instance,  that  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  is  not  by  the  Apostle  Paul."  In  our  work  there  is 
no  such  assertion ;  and  when  M.  Bunsen  suggests  that  per- 
haps its  place  might  be  in  the  lost  books,  he  forgets  that, 
according  to  his  own  conjecture,  these  books  were  no  more  in 
Photius's  hands  than  in  ours,  and  that  he  cannot  first  cut  them 
off  in  order  to  make  a  /3i|3XtSapioj>,  and  then  restore  them,  to 
provide  a  locus  for  a  missing  criticism  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews.  The  identity  of  our  "  Philosophumena  "  with  the 
treatise  which  Photius  read  and  Hippolytus  wrote,  appears, 
therefore,  to  be  extremely  problematical. 

One  fixed  point,  however,  is  gained  in  the  course  of  the 
argument,  and  gives  an  acknowledged  position  from  which  the 

*  On  their  relation,  and  the  doctrine  connected  with  their  names,  see 
Baur's  "  Christl.  Gnosis,"  p.  310. 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  213 

opposite  opinions  are  willing  to  set  out.  Whoever  wrote  the 
disquisition  "  On  the  Universe  "  wrote  also  our  work.  This 
fact  rests  on  the  assertion  of  the  author  himself;  yet,  if  the 
author  be  Hippolytus,  and  our  "  PhilosophuTE^r.f* ':  ti  his 
"  Refutation  of  all  Heresies,"  it  is  strange  that  no  list  of  his 
writings  mentions  both  books  :  the  catalogues  of  Eusebius  and 
Jerome  naming  the  "  Heresies "  without  the  essay  "  On  the 
Universe  "  ;  and  the  engraving  on  the  statue  giving  the  essay 
"  On  the  Universe  "  without  the  "  Heresies."  How  can  we  ex- 
plain it,  that  these  ecclesiastical  writers,  in  knowing  our  work, 
did  not  know  what  is  contained  in  it  about  the  authorship  of 
the  other  book ;  and  that  this  book  should  have  wandered 
anonymously  about  down  to  the  ninth  century,  side  by  side 
with  an  acknowledged  writing  of  Hippolytus,  which  all  the 
while  was  proclaiming  the  solution  of  the  question  ?  We 
should  certainly  expect  that  the  book  of  avowed  authorship 
would  convey  the  name  of  Hippolytus  to  the  companion  pro- 
duction for  which  it  claims  the  same  paternity  ;  but,  instead 
of  this,  it  not  only  leaves  its  associate  anonymous  for  six 
hundred  years,  but  afterward  assumes  the  modest  fit,  and 
becomes  anonymous  itself.  Even  if  no  previous  reader  had 
sense  enough  to  put  the  two  things  together,  and  pick  out  the 
testimony  of  the  one  book  to  the  origin  of  the  other,  are  we 
to  charge  the  same  stupidity  on  the  erudite  Photius,  who  had 
both  books  in  his  hand,  and  has  given  his  report  of  both  ?  In 
his  account  of  Hippolytus's  treatise,  he  nowhere  tells  us  that  it 
contains  a  reference  to  the  essay  "  On  the  Universe,"  as  being 
from  the  same  pen ;  and  that  he  found  no  such  reference  is 
certain ;  for  he  actually  discusses  the  question,  "  Who  wrote 
the  essay  on  the  Universe  ?  "  without  ever  mentioning  Hippo- 
lytus at  all.  Just  such  a  reference,  however,  as  he  did  not  find 
in  Hippolytus,  he  did  find  in  another  work,  of  which  he  speaks 
under  the  title  of  "  The  Labyrinth  " ;  and,  strange  to  say,  it 
was  at  the  end  of  the  work,*  precisely  where  it  stands  in  our 


*  Phot.  Biblioth.,  cod.  48.    «?  «u  avros  (i.  e.  Fator)  eV  TO}  reX«  TOV 
\aftvplvQov  Ste/iaprvpaTO,  tavrov  tlvat  TOV  ire  pi  TTJS  TOV  iravrbs  ovaias 

\rrunv. 


214  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

"  Philosophumena.  "  Who  can  resist  the  suspicion,  tnat  the 
anonymous  "  Labyrinth "  of  Photius  is  no  other  than  our 
anonymous  "  Philosophumena "  ?  This  conviction  forced 
itself  upon  us  on  first  weighing  the  evidence  collected  by 
M.  Bunsen,  in  support  of  his  different  conclusion ;  and  we 
observe  that  it  is  the  opinion  sustained  by  the  great  authority 
of  Baur,*  who  even  finds  a  trace  in  our  work  of  the  very 
title  given  by  Photius ;  the  writer  observing,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  tenth  book,  "  The  Labyrinth  of  Heresies  we  have  not 
broken  through  by  violence,  but  have  resolved  by  reiutation 
alone  with  the  force  of  truth ;  and  now  we  come  to  tne  posi- 
tive exposition  of  the  truth."  At  all  events,  the  difference  of 
title  in  the  case  of  a  work  having  probably  more  names  than 
one,  is  of  no  weight  in  disproof  of  identity.  With  this  new 
designation  in  our  possession,  we  may  return  to  search  for 
our  book  in  the  records  of  ecclesiastical  antiquity ;  and  we 
have  not  far  to  go,  before  we  alight  on  traces  affording  hopes 
of  a  result.  No  "  Labyrinth,"  indeed,  turns  up  in  the  literary 
history  of  earlier  centuries  than  Photius  ;  but  a  "  Little  Laby- 
rinth "  is  mentioned  by  Theodoret,f  as  sometimes  ascribed  to 
Origen,  but  as  evidently  not  his  ;  and  from  his  account  of  it, 
confirmed  by  the  matter  Avhich  he  borrows  from  it,  we  learn 
that  it  was  a  controversial  book,  against  a  set  of  Unitarians  in 
Rome,  followers  of  Theodotus.  It  so  happens  that  the  very 
passage  from  this  tract  which  Theodoret  has  used  appears 
also,  with  others  from  the  same  source,  in  Eusebius,  only 
quoted  under  another  title,  —  the  book  being  called  a  "  Work 
against  the  Heresy  of  Artemon  "  (who  was  another  teacher 
of  the  same  school  in  the  same  age).  The  extracts  thus  pre- 
served to  us  are  not  found  in  our  work  ;  which,  therefore,  if  it 
be  the  "  Labyrinth,"  is  a  distinct  production  from  the  "  Little 
Labyrinth " ;  but  they  are  so  manifestly  from  the  same  pen, 

*  Theologische  Jahrbiicher,  12er  Band,  I.  1853,  p.  154. 
t  Hseret.  Fab.  II.  c.  5.    Kara  rfjs  TOVTGOV  6  cr/JLLKpos  (rvvtypdcpr)  \aj3v- 
pivdos,  ov  rives  'flpiyfvovs  \nro\ap.ftavovcri.   Troirjpa  •  dXX'    6   xaPaKT*lP 
ei  TOVS  \fyovras. 


OF   EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  215 

occupied  in  the  same  task,  as  to  render  it  perfectly  conceiv- 
able that  the  two  books  might  receive  the  same  name,  with 
only  a  diminutive  epithet  to  distinguish  the  lesser  from  the 
greater.  Nor  are  we  left,  as  Baur  has  shown,  without  a  dis- 
tinct assertion  by  our  "  great  unknown,"  that  he  had  already 
composed  a  smaller  treatise  on  the  same  subject ;  for,  in  the 
introduction  to  the  "  Philosophumena,''  he  says  of  the  here- 
tics, "  We  have  before  given  a  brief  exposition  of  their  opin- 
ions, refuting  them  in  the  gross,  without  presenting  them  in 
detail."  This  shorter  work  would  naturally  treat  of  the  par- 
ticular forms  of  error  most  immediately  present  and  mischiev- 
ous before  the  author's  eyes ;  and  if  he  dwelt  especially  on 
the  doctrines  of  Theodotus  and  Artemon,  it  is  just  what  we 
should  expect  from  an  orthodox  Roman.  This  essay,  on  a 
limited  range  -of  heresy,  would  naturally  be  issued  at  first 
with  the  special  title  by  which  Eusebius  refers  to  it.  But  if 
it  led  the  author  to  execute  afterwards  a  much  enlarged 
design,  to  which,  from  its  intricate  extent,  he  gave,  on  its 
completion,  the  fanciful  designation  of  "  The  Labyrinth,"  he 
might  naturally  carry  the  name  back  to  the  earlier  production, 
and,  to  mark  the  relation  between  the  two,  issue  this  in  future 
as  "  The  Little  Labyrinth."  Photius  speaks  of  the  tract 
against  the  heresy  of  Artemon  as  a  separate  work  from 
"  The  Labyrinth,"  *  and  says  the  same  thing  of  the  latter  f 
that  Theodoret  had  remarked  of  the  former,  that  by  some  it 
was  ascribed  to  Origen.  The  result  to  which  we  are  thus  led 
is  the  following.  Our  newly  found  work  is  not  Hippolytus's 
/3^3Xt8apioi>  "  On  all  Heresies,"  but  the  book  known  to  Photius 
as  "  The  Labyrinth " ;  the  author  of  which  had  previously 
produced  two  other  works,  viz.  "  The  Little  Labyrinth  "  men- 
tioned by  Theodoret,  and  quoted  under  another  name  by 
Eusebius,  and  the  "  Treatise  on  the  Universe,"  whose  contents 

*  He  also  describes  its  exact  relation  to  the  other,  when  he  calls  it  a 
special  work  (t  8  i  a>  r)  in  comparison  with  "  The  Labyrinth  "  as  a  general 
one :  (nitrogen  8e  KOI  ertpov  \6yov  tSi'cos  Kara  rfjs ' Aprtptovos  at'p«'<rea>f . 
Cod.  48. 

t  Ibid,     uxnrtp  KOI  TOV  hafivpivdov  nvts  tntypa^av  'fltptytvovt . 


216  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

Photius  reports.  Whatever,  therefore,  fixes  the  authorship  of 
any  of  these,  fixes  the  authorship  of  all. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  our  threefold  chance,  we  have 
only  a  solitary  evidence  on  this  point.  Attached  to  Photius's 
copy  of  the  "  Treatise  on  the  Universe  "  was  a  note,  to  the 
effect  that  the  book  was  not  (as  had  been  imagined)  by  Jo- 
sephus,  but  by  Caius,  the  Roman  presbyter,  who  also  com- 
posed the  "Labyrinth."*  In  the  absence  of  other  external 
testimony,  this  judgment  appears  entitled  to  stand,  unless  the 
books  themselves  disclose  some  features  at  variance  with  the 
known  character  of  Caius. 

But,  it  is  said,  such  variance  we  do  actually  find.  For 
while  our  work  expressly  appeals  to  the  Apocalypse  as  the 
production  of  John,  we  know  from  Eusebius  that  Caius 
ascribed  it  to  Cerinthus,  and,  in  opposing  himself  to  Monta- 
toism,  rejected  the  millenarian  doctrine  which  is  taught  in  the 
Revelations.  This  argument,  we  admit,  would  be  decisive  if 
vts  allegations  were  indisputable.  It  is  curious,  however,  that 
the  one  locus  classicusrf  from  which  is  inferred  the  presbyter's 
repudiation  of  the  Apocalypse,  is  confessedly  ambiguous ;  and 
the  charge  it  prefers  against  Cerinthus  may  amount  to  either 
of  these  two  propositions ;  that  he  had  composed  the  Book  of 
Revelations  and  palmed  it  on  the  world  as  the  production  of 


*  Biblioth.  cod.  48;  Lardner's  "Credibility,"  Part  II.  ch.  xxxii.;  Bun- 
sen's  Hippolytus,  I.  p.  150. 

t  Euseb.  H.  E.,  III.  28.  aXXa  /cat  K^pii^oy,  6  6Y  arfOKa\v\lffu>v  u>s  vno 
aTTOCToXou  peyaXov  yfypa^fva>v  reparoXoyi'ay  T]f*iv  u>s  6V  dyytXtoj/ 
airo)  8e$ftyfJ.evas  ^fv86p.fvos  eTreitrayet,  Xeywp,  p.fra  TTJV  dvdcrracriv 
eiriytiov  eii/ai  TO  /3acriXetoi/  TOV  Xpio-rot;,  Km  TraXif  enidvpiiais  (cat  Tj8o- 
vals  fv  'lfpov(ra\f)p.  rr)v  crap/ca  TroXiTeuop.ew;!'  8ov\e vtiv.  KOI  e^^pos 
vTrap^wi'  rais  ypcHpdls  TOV  dtov  dpidfj.oi>  ^iXioiTaen'ay  ev  yap-co  foprfjs 
6f\a>v  TrXavqv  Xeyet  yivfcrdai.  The  passage,  preserving  its  obscurities, 
seems  to  run  thus:  "Cerinthus  too,  through  the  medium  of  revelations 
written  as  if  by  a  great  Apostle,  has  palmed  off  upon  us  marvellous  accounts, 
pretending  to  have  been  shown  him  by  angels ;  to  the  effect  that,  after  the 
resurrection,  the  kingdom  of  Christ  will  be  an  earthly  one,  and  that  the  flesh 
will  again  be  at  the  head  of  affairs,  and  serve  in  Jerusalem  the  lusts  and 
pleasures  of  sense.  And  with  wilful  misguidance  he  says,  setting  himself  in 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  217 

the  Apostle  John ;  or,  that  he  had  given  himself  the  air  of  a 
great  Apostle,  and  published  accordingly  some  revelations 
affecting  to  be  imparted,  like  those  of  John,  by  angels.  Ac- 
cording to  this  last  interpretation,  the  work  of  Cerinthus 
would  be  a  book  distinct  from  our  Apocalypse,  written  in 
imitation  of  it,  and  seeking  to  share  its  authority.  The  con- 
tents of  the  production  are  briefly  described  by  Caius ;  but 
they  present  such  a  mixture  of  agreement  and  disagreement 
with  our  canonical  book,  as  to  leave  the  ambiguity  unresolved. 
They  affirm,  that  after  the  resurrection  will  follow  an  earthly 
kingdom  of  Christ,  in  which  the  lower  nature  of  man  will,  in 
Jerusalem,  be  again  in  servitude  to  passion  and  pleasure ; 
and  that  the  number  of  a  thousand  years  are  to  be  spent  in 
the  indulgence  of  sense.  So  far  as  the  place  and  the  duration 
of  the  kingdom  are  concerned,  our  Apocalypse  might  here  be 
referred  to ;  but  it  has  nothing  answering  to  the  description 
of  a  gross  and  luxurious  millennium.  Taking  the  passage  in 
conjunction  with  the  similar  statement  of  Theodoret,  that 
"  Cerinthus  invented  certain  revelations,  pretending  that  they 
were  given  in  vision  to  himself,"  we  think  it  unlikely  that  our 
Apocalypse  can  be  meant ;  and  conceive  the  indictment  to  be, 
that  Cerinthus  had  put  forth  a  set  of  apocryphal  visions,  in 
which  he  abused  the  style  and  corrupted  the  teachings  of  a 
great  Apostle  to  the  purposes  of  a  sensual  fanaticism.  This 


opposition  to  the  Scriptures  of  God,  that  a  period  of  a  thousand  years  will  be 
spent  in  nuptial  festivities."  On  this  much-controverted  passage,  Lardner 
(Cred.,  P.  II.  ch.  xxxii.)  suspends  his  judgment,  rather  inclining  to  doubt 
•whether  our  Apocalypse  is  referred  to;  Hug  (Einl.  §  176),  Paulus  (Hist. 
Cerinth.,  P.  I.  §  30),  with  Twells  and  Hartwig  (whose  criticisms  we  have  not 
seen),  deny  that  the  Apocalypse  is  meant;  while  Eichhorn  (Einl.  in  das 
N.  T.,  VI.  v.  §  194.  2),  De  Wette  (Lehrbuch  der  Einl.  in  d.  N.  T.,  §  192  a), 
Liicke  (Commentar  iib.  d.  Schriften  des  Ev.  Johannes,  Offenb.  §  33),  and 
Schwegler  (Das  nachapost.  Zeitalter,  2er  B.  p.  218),  take  the  other  side.  It 
must  be  confessed  also,  that,  till  the  rise  of  the  present  discussion  about  the 
"  Philosophoumena,"  Baur  agreed  with  these  last  writers.  (See  his  Christl. 
Lehre  v.  d.  Dreieinigkeit,  ler  B.  p.  283.)  He  now  urges,  however,  that,  in  a 
case  already  so  doubtful,  the  discovery  of  a  lost  book,  which  we  have  good 
reason  to  ascribe  to  Caius,  necessarily  brings  in  new  evidence,  and  may  turn 
the  scale  between  two  balanced  interpretations.  (Theol.  Jahrb.,  p.  167.) 
19 


218  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

is  a  charge  which  Caius  might  bring,  in  consistency  with  the 
fullest  acceptance  of  the  Apocalypse  as  authentic  and  true. 
It  was  not  the  doctrine  of  a  reign  of  Christ  on  earth,  not  the 
millenarian  period  assigned  to  it,  to  which  he  objected  in 
Cerinthus ;  but  the  coarse  and  demoralizing  picture  given  of 
its  employments  and  delights.  In  proportion  to  his  respect 
for  the  real  Apocalypse  and  its  teachings,  would  he  be  likely  to 
resent  such  a  miserable  parody  on  its  lofty  theocratic  visions. 
His  opposition  to  the  Montanists  in  no  way  pledged  him  to 
renounce  the  eschatological  expectations  which  they  were  dis- 
tinguished from  other  Christians  not  by  entertaining,  but  by 
exaggerating.  If  our  work,  in  its  notice  of  their  heresy, 
passes  by  in  silence  this  particular  element  of  the  system, 
and  treats  their  claim  to  special  gifts  of  prophecy  with  less 
contemptuous  emphasis  than  might  be  looked  for  in  the  an- 
tagonist of  Proclus,  there  is  nothing  that  ought  really  to  sur- 
prise us  in  this.  It  does  not  follow  that,  because  in  our  scanty 
knowledge  we  have  only  one  idea  about  an  historical  person- 
age, the  man  himself  never  had  another.  Caius  did  not  live 
in  a  perpetual  platform  disputation  with  Proclus  ;  and  either 
before  that  controversy  had  waked  him  up,  or  after  it  was 
well  got  over,  he  might  naturally  enough  dismiss  the  Mon- 
tanists with  very  cursory  notice ;  in  the  one  case,  because 
they  had  not  yet  adequately  provoked  his  antipathy ;  in  the 
other,  because  they  had  already  had  enough  of  it.* 

Nothing  therefore  presents  itself  in  our  work  which  should 
deter  us  from  attributing  it  to  Caius ;  and  the  more  we  ponder 
the  evidence,  the  more  do  we  incline  to  believe  it  his.  This 

*  Baur  explains  the  slight  treatment  of  the  Montanist  heresy  in  the 
"  Philosophumena  "  by  the  intention  which  Caius  already  had  of  writing  a 
special  book  against  them :  and  contends  that  this  intention  is  announced 
expressly  in  the  words  (p.  276),  irepl  rovrcov  avOis  \f7TTOp.fpecrTepoi'  eK$ij- 
(TOfiaf  TroXXoTs  -yap  d<pop/j.rj  Ka.K<av  yeyevrjTai  17  TOVTU>V  alpetris-  These 
words,  however,  do  not  refer,  as  the  connection  evidently  shows,  to  the  Mon- 
tanists generally;  but  only  to  a  certain  class  of  them  who  fell  in  with  the 
patripassian  doctrine  of  Noetus.  The  Noetian  scheme  Caius  was  going  to 
discuss  further  on  in  this  very  book :  and  it  is  evidently  to  this  later  chapter, 
not  to  any  separate  work  against  Montanism,  that  he  alludes. 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  219 

result  is  to  us  an  unwelcome  one ;  both  because  we  know  how 
strong  the  presumption  must  be  against  a  critical  judgment 
condemned  by  the  masterly  genius  of  M.  Bunsen,  and  because 
he  has  really  made  us  in  love  with  his  ecclesiastical  hero,  —  has 
put  such  an  innocent  and  venerable  life  into  that  old  effigy, 
that  after  wandering  with  him  about  the  quays  of  Portus,  and 
entering  with  listening  fancy  into  the  Basilica*  where  he 
preached,  it  is  hard  to  return  him  into  stone,  and  think  of  him 
only  as  a  dead  bishop  who  made  a  bad  almanac.  Should  our 
readers  have  contracted  no  such  ideal  attachment,  we  fear  that 
this  discussion  of  authorship  may  appear  as  trivial  as  it  is 
tedious.  Somebody  wrote  the  "  Philosophumena,"  and  wheth- 
er we  call  him  Hippolytus  or  Caius,  whether  we  lodge  him 
on  the  Tiber  within  sight  of  the  Pharos,  or  of  the  Milliarium 
Aureum,  may  seem  a  thing  indifferent,  so  long  as  the  elements 
of  the  personal  image  do  not  materially  change.  This  utilita- 
rian impression  is  by  no  means  just,  and  indeed  is  at  variance 
with  all  true  historical  feeling.  But  it  is  time  that  we  should 
give  it  its  fair  rights,  and  turn  from  the  name  upon  our  new 
book  to  its  substances  and  significance. 

Many  sensible  persons  are  at  a  loss,  we  believe,  to  under- 
stand why  this  refutation  of  thirty-two  extinct  heresies  should 
be  regarded  with  so  much  interest.  Is  it  so  well  done,  then  ? 
they  ask.  Far  from  it :  better  books  are  brought  out  every 
year;  and  such  a  controversial  argument  offered  in  manu- 
script to  Mr.  Longman  or  Mr.  Parker  to-morrow,  would  hard- 
ly be  deemed  worth  the  cost  of  printing.  Does  it  add  materi- 
ally to  our  knowledge  of  the  early  heresies  ?  Something  of 
this  kind  it  certainly  contributes ;  but  the  gain  is  not  large, 
and  will  make  no  essential  change  in  the  conclusions  of  any 
competent  historical  inquirer.  Is  any  light  thrown  by  it  on 
the  authenticity  of  our  canonical  books  ?  This  can  hardly  be 
expected  from  a  production  of  the  third  century;  and  M. 
Bunsen's  application  of  it  to  this  purpose  appears  to  us,  for 

*  The  word  is  perhaps  not  allowable  in  speaking  of  the  earliest  time  (the 
reign  of  Alexander  Severus)  assignable  for  the  erection  of  separate  build- 
ings appropriate  to  Christian  worship. 


220  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

reasons  which  we  shall  assign,  extremely  precarious.  Per- 
haps it  supplies  the  want  which  every  student  of  that  period 
must  have  felt,  and  organically  joins  ecclesiastical  to  civil  his- 
tory, so  that  they  no  longer  remain  apart,  —  the  one  as  the 
stage  for  saints  and  martyrs,  bishops  and  books,  the  other  for 
soldiers  and  senators,  emperors  and  paramours,  —  but  min- 
gle in  the  common  life  of  humanity.  When  we  think  how 
the  author  was  placed,  it  is  impossible  not  to  go  to  him  with 
an  eager  hope  of  this  nature.  He  lived  at  the  centre  of  the 
vast  Roman  world,  and  felt  all  the  pulsations  and  paroxysms 
of  that  mighty  heart.  He  witnessed  the  ominous  decline  of 
every  traditional  maxim  and  national  reverence  in  favor  of 
imported  superstitions  and  degenerate  barbarities.  Under 
Commodus  he  saw  the  ancient  Mars  superseded  by  the  Gre- 
cian Hercules,  and  Hercules  represented  by  an  emperor  who 
sunk  into  a  prize-fighter,  and  the  administration  of  the  empire 
in  the  wanton  hands  of  a  Phrygian  slave,  who  was  only  less 
brutal  than  his  master.  In  the  midst  of  pestilence,  which  had 
become  chronic  in  Italy  from  the  time  of  M.  Antoninus,  and 
of  which  a  Christian  bishop  could  not  but  know  more  than 
others,  the  city  was  still  adding  to  its  semblance  of  splendor 
and  salubrity ;  and  the  magnificent  baths  and  grounds  that 
were  opened  to  the  public  service  at  the  Porta  Capena,  with 
the  multiplied  festivities  and  donatives,  attested  how  little 
mere  physical  attention  to  the  people  can  arrest  the  miseries 
of  a  moral  degradation.  Nor  could  the  Christians  of  that 
age  be  wholly  without  insight  into  the  habits  of  the  highest 
class  in  Rome,  for,  in  that  great  colluvies  of  heterogeneous 
faiths,  the  caprice  of  taste,  if  not  some  better  impulse,  deter- 
mined now  and  then  an  inmate  of  the  palace  to  favor  the  re- 
ligion of  Christ ;  and  the  favorite  mistress  of  Commodus,  who 
ruled  him  while  she  could,  and  then  had  him  drugged  and 
strangled  in  his  sleep,  is  the  very  Marcia  whom  our  presbyter 
describes  as  <£iAd0eos,  and  at  whose  intervention  the  Christian 
exiles  were  released  from  their  banishment  in  Sardinia.  If  he 
was  at  home  when  the  excellent  Pertinax  was  murdered,  and 
cared  to  know  what  tyrant  was  to  have  the  world  instead,  he 


OF  EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  221 

was  perhaps  in  the  throng  that  ran  to  the  Quirinal,  and  heard 
the  Praetorians  shout  from  their  ramparts  that  the  empire  was 
for  sale,  and  saw  the  bargain  with  the  foolish  senator  below, 
who  bought  it  with  his  money,  and  paid  for  it  with  his  head. 
Caius  and  his  people  had  reason  to  tremble  when  they  saw  in 
Septimius  Severus  not  only  the  implacable  conqueror  who 
suffered  no  political  opponent  to  live,  but  the  worshipper  of 
demons,  the  gloomy  and  fitful  devotee  of  astrology  and  magic, 
pliant  only  to  sacerdotal  hate ;  and  when  the  young  Origen 
came  to  be  their  guest  awhile,  and  told  of  the  terror  in  Alex- 
andria which  had  joined  his  father  to  the  band  of  martyrs,  the 
post  that  just  then  brought  the  news  of  the  Emperor's  death 
in  Britain  would  seem  to  take  off  a  weight  of  fear ;  especially 
as  one  son  at  least  of  the  two  inheritors  of  the  empire  had  in 
childhood  been  committed  to  a  Christian  nurse,  and  been  said 
to  shrink  and  turn  away  from  the  savage  spectacles  of  the  am- 
phitheatre. They  were  doomed  to  be  disappointed,  if  they 
had  placed  any  hope  in  Caracalla,  and  to  find  that  what  they 
had  taken  in  the  boy  for  the  nobleness  of  grace,  was  but  the 
timidity  of  nature ;  the  murder,  before  his  mother's  face,  of 
his  only  brother,  and  then  of  his  best  counsellor,  for  refusing 
to  justify  the  fratricide,  would  soon  make  them  ashamed  of 
remembering  that  he  had  ever  heard  the  name  of  Christ.  It 
would  be  curious  to  know  how  the  Christians  comported  them- 
selves when  the  Priest  of  the  Sun  became  monarch  of  the 
world,  and  seemed  intent  on  dethroning  every  divinity  to  en- 
rich the  homage  to  his  own.  The  grand  temple  on  the  Pal- 
atine, which  he  built  for  the  god  of  Emesa,  every  passer-by 
must  have  seen  as  it  rose  from  its  foundations.  And  when 
the  black  stone  was  paraded  on  its  chariot  through  the  streets, 
and  the  elder  deities  were  compelled  to  leave  their  shrines 
and  attend  in  escort  to  the  Eastern  idol,  or  when  the  nuptials 
were  celebrated  between  the  Syrian  divinity  and  the  goddess- 
of  Carthage,  and  Baal-peor  and  Astarte  succeeded  to  the  hon- 
ors of  Jove,  no  Christian  presbyter  could  fail  to  witness  the 
gorgeous  and  humiliating  procession,  —  renewed  as  it  was 
year  by  year,  —  or  to  ask  himself  into  what  deeper  abomina- 
19* 


222  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

tion  the  city  of  the  Scipios  must  sink,  ere  the  catastrophe  of 
judgment  made  a  sudden  end.  The  orgies  of  Ilelagabalus 
were  more  insulting  to  the  elder  Paganism  of  Rome  than  in' 
jurious  to  the  new  faith,  which  equally  detested  both  ;  and  the 
offended  moral  feeling  of  the  city  reacted  perhaps  in  favor  of 
the  Christian  cause,  and  prepared  the  way  for  that  more  pub- 
lic teaching  of  the  religion,  in  buildings  avowedly  dedicated 
to  the  purpose,  which  was  first  permitted  in  the  succeeding 
reign.  The  natural  recoil  in  the  imperial  family  itself  from 
the  degradation  of  the  court  tended,  perhaps,  in  the  same  di- 
rection, and  drove  the  astute  Mamaea  to  seek,  amid  the  univer- . 
sal  corruption,  for  some  school  of  discipline  which  might  save 
the  young  Alexander  Severus  from  the  ignominy  of  her  sis- 
ter's son.  Whether  from  this  motive,  or  from  suspicion  of  the 
growing  force  of  Christianity  as  a  social  power,  she  had  sent 
for  Origen,  and  had  an  interview  with  him  at  Antioch ;  and 
the  Roman  disciples  had  reason  to  rejoice  that  her  intellectual 
impressions  of  their  system  should  have  been  derived  from 
such  a  man,  and  her  political  estimate  of  it  formed  in  the 
East,  where  the  crisis  of  conflict  between  the  dying  and  the 
living  faiths  was  more  advanced  than  in  the  West,  and  afford- 
ed a  less  disguised  augury  of  the  result.  From  their  fellow- 
believers  trading  with  the  Levant,  or  arriving  thence,  the  pas- 
tors of  the  metropolis  would  learn  the  propitious  temper  of 
the  young  Caesar  and  his  mother ;  and  Avould  feel  no  surprise, 
when  he  succeeded  to  the  palace  of  his  cousin,  that  he  not 
only  swept  out  the  ministers  of  lust  and  luxury,  but  in  his  pri- 
vate oratory  enshrined,  among  the  busts  of  Pagan  benefactors, 
the  images  also  of  Abraham  and  of  Christ.  They  could  not, 
however,  but  observe  how  little  the  morals  of  the  court  and 
the  wisdom  of  the  government  could  now  avail  to  arrest  the 
progress  of  decay,  and  reach  in  detail  the  vices  and  miseries 
of  a  degenerate  state.  When  they  passed  the  door  of  the 
palace,  they  heard  the  public  crier's  voice  proclaim,  "  Let  only 
purity  and  innocence  enter  here " ;  they  visited  a  Christian 
tradesman  in  a  neighboring  street,  and  found  him  just  seized 
by  a  nobleman  whom  he  had  dunned  for  an  outstanding  debt, 


OF   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  223 

charged  with  magic  or  poisoning,  doomed  to  pine  in  prison  till 
he  gave  release,  and  no  redress  or  justice  to  be  had.  The  Em- 
peror who,  gazing  in  his  chapel  on  the  features  of  Christ,  rec- 
ognized a  religion  human  and  universal,  was  the  first  under 
whom  a  visible  badge  was  put  upon  the  slave,  and  a  distinc- 
tive servile  dress  adopted ;  the  slave  markets  were  still  in  con- 
secrated spots,  the  temple  of  Castor  and  the  Via  Sacra ;  and 
if  ever  some  captive  Onesimus,  recommended  by  letters  from 
the  East  to  the  brethren  in  Rome,  was  brought  to  the  metrop- 
olis for  sale,  thither  must  the  deacon  or  the  pastor  go  to  find 
how  the  auction  disposes  of  their  charge,  and  learn  which 
among  the  chalked  feet  it  is  that  are  "  shod  with  the  prepa- 
ration of  the  Gospel  of  peace."  The  commonwealth  had 
never  boasted  of  so  many  great  jurists  as  in  the  age  of  Papin- 
ian  and  Paulus ;  but  as  the  science  of  Law  was  perfected,  the 
power  of  Law  declined ;  and  Alexander  Severus,  the  justest 
of  emperors,  was  unable  to  protect  Ulpian,  the  greatest  of 
civilians,  from  military  assassination  in  the  palace  itself,  or  to 
punish  the  perpetrators  of  this  outrage  on  popular  feeling  as 
well  as  public  right.  The  three  days'  tumult,  in  which  this 
master  of  jurisprudence  fell  the  victim  of  Prcetorian  licen- 
tiousness, our  presbyter  Caius  must  have  witnessed;  and 
countless  other  momentous  scenes,  during  a  generation  pain- 
fully affluent  in  vicissitude,  must  have  passed  before  his  eyes ; 
and  had  he  but  known  of  what  value  his  reports  would  be  to 
this  age  of  ours,  he  would  have  said  more  of  the  life  he  saw, 
and  less  of  the  speculations  he  denounced.  To  us  it  would 
have  been  worth  anything  to  know  just  what  was  too  close  to 
him  to  catch  his  eye ;  —  how  the  Christians  lived  hi  such  a 
world ;  what  thoughts  stirred  in  them  as  they  walked  the 
streets  and  heard  the  news ;  what  happened  and  was  said 
when  they  met  together,  and  how  this  could  adjust  itself  with 
the  real  facts  of  an  inconsistent  and  tyrannical  present ;  and 
how,  as  the  corrupted  State  became  ever  more  incapable  of 
vindicating  moral  ends,  the  rising  Church  undertook  the  secret 
governance  of  life,  and  penetrated  with  its  authority  into  re- 
cesses beyond  the  reach,  not  of  the  arm  of  administration 


224  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

only,  but  of  the  definitions  of  the  widest  code.  But  in  this 
respect  also  our  author  fails  to  realize  our  hopes.  He  gives 
us  a  book  of  fancies  rather  than  of  facts,  and  instead  of  paint- 
ing existence,  which  is  transient,  and  must  be  caught  as  it 
flies,  occupies  himself  in  describing  nonsense,  which  is  always 
to  be  had.  The  enormities  of  Helagabalus,  though  staring 
him  in  the  face,  are  nothing  to  him  in  comparison  with  heresy 
in  Lesser  Asia,  which  keeps  Easter  on  a  wrong  day.  He  is 
shut  up  within  the  interior  circle  of  the  community  of  believ- 
ers, and  gives  but  a  single  glimpse  beyond ;  and  builds  for  us 
no  bridge  to  abolish  the  mysterious  separation  of  ecclesiastical 
and  ideal  from  civil  and  real  existence  in  the  early  ages  of 
our  faith.  He  is  not  peculiar  in  this  defect.  We  all  of  us 
live  in  the  midst  of  history  without  knowing  it,  and  ourselves 
make  history  without  feeling  it ;  and  that  which  will  most 
clearly  paint  us  in  the  thought  of  other  times,  which  will 
seem  our  power  to  them,  our  romance  and  nobleness,  with 
which,  therefore,  they  will  most  crave  to  satiate  their  eye,  is 
precisely  what  is  least  consciously  present  to  us,  —  the  natural 
spirit  and  daily  spring  of  our  common  being,  through  which 
not  the  will  of  man,  but  the  providence  of  God,  works  its  ap- 
pointed ends.  At  all  events,  the  insight  which  we  should  be 
best  pleased  to  gain  into  the  life  of  the  third  century  is  not 
given  even  incidentally,  except  in  the  scantiest  measure,  by 
the  "  Philosophumena,"  which  we  must  rank,  in  this  respect, 
below  the  Apologies,  and  with  the  writings  of  Irenreus  and 
Epiphanius.  The  book  is  dogmatic  and  controversial,  and 
the  interest  attached  to  it  arises  entirely  from  its  being  a  reg- 
ister of  opinion,  a  new  witness  to  the  thoughts  about  divine 
things,  which  the  Christianity  of  its  period  owned  and  dis- 
owned. For  those  who  care  at  all  to  know  the  state  of  belief 
a  century  before  the  Council  of  Nice,  the  work  possesses  a 
high  value.  But  the  worth  of  this  sort  of  information  is  it- 
self a  thing  disputed,  at  least  its  religious  worth ;  and  will  be 
very  differently  estimated,  according  to  the  preconception 
which  occupies  us  as  to  the  nature  of  Divine  Revelation,  and 
the  sources  open  to  us  for  the  attainment  of  sacred  truth. 


OF   EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  225 

Here  it  is  that  we  find  M.  Bunsen's  great  and  peculiar 
strength.  His  religious  philosophy,  taken  by  itself,  brings 
us  occasionally  to  a  pause  of  doubt.  His  historical  criticism 
is  not  always  convincing.  But  his  doctrine  of  the  relation 
between  religion  and  history,  of  the  mingling  of  divine  and 
human  elements  in  the  theatre  of  time,  and  of  the  special 
agency  of  Christianity  in  the  spiritual  education  of  mankind, 
appears  to  us  profoundly  true  and  beautiful.  This  it  is  that 
makes  him  attach  so  much  importance  to  the  creed  of  the 
second  and  third  centuries,  and  to  the  new  light  now  thrown 
upon  it ;  an  importance  which,  from  every  ordinary  point  of 
view,  can  scarcely  fail  to  appear  fanciful  and  exaggerated. 

The  Roman  Catholic,  for  instance,  entertains  a  conception 
about  what  sacred  truth  is,  and  how  it  is  to  be  had,  which, 
leaving  nothing  to  depend  on  new  discoveries,  discharges  all 
the  richest  interest  from  any  fresh  knowledge  we  may  gain  of 
religion  in  the  past.  With  him  divine  truth,  so  far  as  it  is 
special  to  Christendom,  is  something  wholly  foreign  to  the 
human  mind,  intrinsically  unrelated  to  any  faculty  we  have. 
In  being  supernatural,  it  belongs  to  another  sphere  than  that 
to  which  our  thought  is  restricted,  and  is  totally  withdrawn 
from  all  the  movements  of  our  nature.  It  consists,  indeed,  in 
a  set  of  objective  facts  from  which  we  are  absent,  and  which 
no  ratiocination  of  ours  can  seize,  any  more  than  our  ear  can 
tell  whether  there  be  music  on  Saturn's  ring.  There  is  no 
human  consciousness  answering  to  it ;  and  to  resort  thither  for 
it  is  like  asking  the  dreamer  or  the  blindfold  to  describe  the 
scene  in  which  he  stands,  or  consulting  your  own  feelings  to 
learn  what  is  going  on  in  Pekin  or  Japan.  On  this  theory, 
the  objects  of  faith  are  conceived  of  as  objects  of  perception, 
only  by  senses  otherwise  constituted  than  ours ;  we  can  have 
no  surmise  about  them,  till  they  are  announced  to  us  by  qual- 
ified percipients,  and  no  comprehension  of  them  even  then, 
but  only  reception  of  them  as  facts  imported  for  us  from 
abroad.  The  bearing  of  this  doctrine  of  invisible  realism  on 
the  treatment  of  ecclesiastical  history  is  manifest.  The  inac- 
cessible facts  are  deposited  with  the  sacerdotal  corporation  > 


226  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

with  whom  alone  is  vested  the  duty  and  the  power  of  stating 
and  defining  them.  They  are  not  indeed  all  stated  and  de- 
fined in  their  last  amplitude  at  once ;  for  definition  is  always 
an  enclosure  of  the  true  by  exclusion  of  the  false ;  and  it  is 
only  in  proportion  as  the  dreaming  perversity  of  men  throws 
forth  one  delusive  fancy  after  another,  that  the  Church  draws 
line  after  line  to  shut  the  intrusion  out.  If  the  creeds  seem 
to  enlarge  as  the  centuries  pass,  it  is  not  that  they  have  more 
truth  to  give,  but  only  more  error  to  remove.  The  divine 
facts  were  conceived  aright  and  conceived  complete  in  the 
minds  of  Apostles  and  Evangelists,  but  they  were  not  contem- 
plated then  as  against  the  follies  and  contradictions  opposed  to 
them  in  later  times ;  but  as  soon  as  the  hour  came  for  this 
antagonism  to  be  felt,  the  infallible  perception  secured  in  per- 
petuity to  the  living  hierarchy  supplied  the  due  verdict  of  re- 
jection. To  the  Catholic,  therefore,  Christianity  was  made 
up  and  finished,  its  treasury  was  full,  in  the  first  generation  ; 
its  power  of  development  is  only  the  refusal  of  deviation; 
and  its  intellectual  life  is  tame  as  the  story  of  some  perfect 
hero,  who  does  nothing  but  stand  still  and  repel  temptations. 
The  history  of  doctrines  thus  becomes  a  history  of  heresies ; 
the  primitive  stock  of  tradition  and  Scripture  must,  on  the  one 
hand,  be  maintained  entire  in  the  face  of  all  possible  expos- 
ures by  critical  research ;  and,  on  the  other,  remain  in  eternal 
barrenness  and  produce  no  more.  Natural  knowledge,  wheth- 
er of  the  world  or  of  humanity,  may  grow  continually,  but 
the  new  thoughts  it  may  lead  us  to  entertain  of  God  are  ei- 
ther not  new,  or  not  true  ;  and  every  pretended  enrichment  of 
truth  is  nothing  but  evolution  of  falsehood.  This  removal  of 
all  variety  from  religion,  this  expulsion  of  life  and  change 
into  the  negative  region  of  aberration  and  denial,  eviscerates 
the  past  of  its  devout  interest,  rests  the  study  of  it  on  con- 
tempt instead  of  reverence  for  man  ;  with  all  its  pious  air,  it 
simply  betrays  history  with  a  kiss,  and  delivers  it  over  for 
scribes  to  buffet  and  chief  priests  to  crucify.  Short  work  is 
made  in  this  way  of  any  fresh  witness,  like  the  author  of  our 
book,  who  turns  up  unexpectedly  from  an  early  age.  Does 


OF   EAKLY    CHRISTIANITY.  227 

he  speak  in  agreement  with  the  hierarchical  standards  ?  He 
only  flings  another  voice  into  the  consensus  of  obedient  believ- 
ers. Does  he  say  anything  at  variance  with  the  regulajidei? 
Then  have  we  only  to  see  in  what  class  of  heretics  he  stands. 
His  testimony  is  either  superfluous  or  misleading. 

The  Protestant,  of  the  approved  English  type,  arrives, 
under  guidance  of  a  different  thought,  at  the  same  flat  and  in- 
different result.  Though  he  gives  a  more  subjective  charac- 
ter to  divine  truth  than  the  Roman  Catholic,  and  brings  both 
the  want  and  the  supply  of  it  more  within  the  attestation  of 
consciousness,  he  puts  its  discovery  equally  beyond  the  reach 
of  our  ruined  faculties,  and  equally  cuts  it  off  from  all  rela- 
tion to  philosophy  and  the  natural  living  exercise  of  reason 
and  conscience.  He  further  agrees  that  his  foreign  gift  of 
revelation  was  imported  all  at  once,  and  all  complete,  into  our 
world,  within  the  Apostolic  age ;  that  the  conceptions  of  that 
time  are  an  authoritative  rule  for  all  succeeding  centuries  ; 
and  that  every  newer  doctrine  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  false 
accretion,  to  be  flung  off  into  the  imcompetent  and  barren 
spaces  of  human  speculation.  He  denies,  however,  the  two- 
fold vehicle  of  this  precious  gift;  and,  cancelling  altogether 
the  oral  tradition  and  indeterminate  Christian  consciousness 
of  the  early  Church,  shuts  up  the  whole  contents  of  religion 
within  the  canonical  Scriptures.  The  guardianship  of  un- 
written tradition  being  abolished,  and  the  canon  requiring  no 
guardianship  at  all,  the  trust  deposited  with  the  hierarchy 
disappears ;  and  no  permanent  inspiration,  no  authoritative 
judicial  function,  in  matters  of  faith,  remains.  Whatever 
Holy  Spirit  continues  in  the  Church  is  not  a  progressively 
teaching  spirit,  which  can  ever  impart  thoughts  or  experiences 
unknown  to  the  first  believers ;  but  a  personally  comforting 
and  animating  spirit,  whose  highest  climax  of  enlightenment 
is  the  exact  reproduction  of  the  primitive  state  of  mind.  The 
apprehension  of  Divine  truth  is  thus  reduced  to  an  affair  of 
verbal  interpretation  of  documents ;  and  though  in  this  pro- 
cess there  is  room  for  the  largest  play  of  subjective  feeling, 
so  that  different  minds,  different  nations,  different  ages,  will 


228  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

unconsciously  evolve  very  various  results ;  these  are  not  to 
be  regarded  as  possible  Divine  enrichments  of  the  faith,  but 
to  be  brought  rigidly  to  the  standard  of  the  earliest  Church, 
and  disowned  wherever  they  include  what  was  absent  there. 
This  view  is  less  mischievous  than  the  Roman  Catholic,  only 
because  it  is  more  inconsequent  and  confused.  The  canon 
which  you  take  as  sacred  was  selected  and  set  in  authority 
by  the  unwritten  consciousness  and  tradition  which  you  reject 
as  profane.  The  Church  existed  before  its  records ;  ex- 
pressed its  life  in  ways  spreading  indefinitely  beyond  them  ; 
and  neither  was  exempt  from  human  elements  till  they  were 
finished,  nor  lost  the  Divine  spirit  when  they  were  done.  So 
arbitrary  a  doctrine  corrupts  the  beauty  of  Scripture,  and 
deadens  the  noblest  interest  of  history.  If  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  to  serve  as  an  infallible  standard,  it  is  thus  committed 
to  perfect  unity  and  self-consistency  ;  and  you  are  obliged  to 
contend  that  the  various  types  of  doctrine  found  within  its 
compass  —  the  Messianic  conceptions  of  Matthew  and  John, 
the  "  Faith "  of  Paul  and  James,  the  eucharistic  conceptions 
of  the  first  Evangelists  and  the  last,  the  eschatology  of  the 
Apocalypse  and  the  Epistles  —  are  only  different  sides  of  one 
and  the  same  belief,  colored  with  the  tints  and  shadings  of 
several  minds.  How  utterly  inadequate  such  an  hypothesis 
is  to  the  explanation  of  the  Scriptural  phenomena,  what  a 
distorted  and  absurd  representation  it  gives  of  the  sacred  writ- 
ers, and  their  mode  of  thought,  is  best  known  to  those  who 
have  honestly  tried  to  deal  with  the  fourth  Gospel,  for  instance, 
as  historically  the  supplement  of  the  others,  and  dogmatically 
of  the  Book  of  Revelation ;  to  suppose  the  Logos-doctrine 
tacitly  present  in  the  speeches  of  Peter ;  to  detect  the  pre- 
existence  in  Mark,  or  remove  it  from  John ;  or  to  identify 
•  the  Paraclete  with  the  gifts  of  Pentecost.  All  feeling  of  liv- 
ing reality  is  lost  from  our  picture  of  the  Apostolic  time,  when 
its  outlines  are  thus  blurred,  its  contrasts  destroyed,  its  grouped 
figures  effaced,  and  the  whole  melted  away  by  the  persever- 
ing drizzle  of  a  watery  criticism  into  a  muddy  glory  round 
the  place  where  Christ  should  be.  If,  moreover,  we  are  to 


OF    EABLY    CHRISTIANITY.  229 

find  everything  in  the  first  age,  then  the  second,  and  the 
third,  and  all  others,  must  be  worse,  just  in  so  far  as  they  dif- 
fer from  it ;  and  the  whole  course  of  succeeding  thought,  the 
widening  and  deepening  of  the  Christian  faith  and  feeling,  the 
swelling  of  its  stream  by  the  lapse  into  it  of  Oriental  Gnosis 
and  Hellenic  Platonism  and  the  Western  Conscience,  must 
be  a  ceaseless  degeneracy.  Thus  to  the  Bibliolater  as  to  the 
Romanist,  Divine  truth  has  no  history  among  men,  unless  it  be 
the  history  of  decline,  or  of  recovery  purchased  by  decline. 
He  also  will  accordingly  care  nothing  about  what  the  people 
of  Caius  or  Hippolytus  thought.  Is  it  in  the  Bible  ?  If  so, 
he  knew  it  before.  Is  it  not  in  the  Bible  ?  Then  he  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  it  but  throw  it  away.  By  a  fitting  retribution, 
this  moping  worship  of  the  letter  of  a  book  and  the  creed 
of  a  generation  brings  it  to  pass  that  both  are  lost  to  the  mind 
in  a  dismal  haze  of  ignorance  and  misconception  ;  and  if  the 
"  Evangelical "  believer  could  be  transported  suddenly  from 
Exeter  Hall  into  the  company  of  the  twelve  in  Jerusalem,  or 
the  Proseucha  which  Paul  enters  on  the  banks  of  the  Stry- 
mon,  or  the  room  where  the  Agape  is  prepared  at  Rome,  we 
are  persuaded  that  he  would  find  a  scene  newer  to  his  ex- 
pectations than  by  any  other  migration  into  a  known  time  and 
place. 

But  now  let  us  abolish  this  isolation  from  the  rest  of  human 
existence  of  the  incunabula  of  our  faith,  and  throw  open  that 
time  to  free  relation  with  the  whole  providence  of  humanity. 
Suppose  Christianity  to  be  the  influence  upon  the  world  of  a 
Divine  Person,  —  in  quality  divine,  in  quantity  human, — 
whose  Epiphany  was  determined  at  a  crisis  of  ripe  conditions 
for  the  rescue,  the  evolution,  the  spread  of  holy  and  sanctify- 
ing truth.  What  are  those  conditions  ?  They  consist  mainly 
in  the  co-presence,  within  the  embrace  of  one  vast  state,  of 
two  opposite  races  or  types  of  men,  both  having  a  partial  gift 
of  divine  apprehension,  and  holding  in  charge  an  indispensa- 
ble element  of  truth ;  both  with  their  spiritual  life  verging  to 
exhaustion  and  capable  of  no  separate  effort  more  ;  and  each 
unconsciously  pining  away  for  want  of  the  complement  of 
20 


230  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

thought  which  the  other  only  could  supply.  The  Hebrew 
brought  his  intense  feeling  of  the  Personality  of  God ;  con- 
ceiving this  in  so  concentrated  a  form  as  to  exclude  the  proper 
notion  of  infinitude,  and  render  Him  only  the  most  powerful 
Being  in  the  Universe,  its  Monarch,  —  wielding  the  creatures 
as  his  puppets,  —  acting  historically  upon  its  scenes  as  objec- 
tive to  Him,  and  by  the  annals  of  his  past  agency  supplying 
to  the  Abrahamic  family  a  religion  of  archives  and  documents. 
The  sovereignty  of  Jehovah  raised  him  to  an  immeasurable 
height  above  his  creation ;  dwarfed  all  other  existence ;  placed 
him  by  nature  at  a  distance  from  men,  and  only  by  conde- 
scension allowing  of  approximation.  And  hence  his  worship- 
pers, in  proportion  as  they  adored  his  greatness,  felt  the  little- 
ness of  all  else  ;  acquired  a  temper  towards  their  fellow-men, 
if  not  severe  and  scornful,  at  least  not  reverent  and  tender ; 
and  regarded  them  as  separate  in  kind  from  Him,  mere  dust 
on  the  balance  or  locusts  in  the  field.  The  religion  of  the 
Hellenic  race  began  at  the  other  end,  —  from  the  midst  of 
human  life,  its  mysteries,  its  struggles,  its  nobleness,  its  mix- 
ture of  heroic  Free-will  and  awful  Destiny ;  and  their  deepest 
reverence,  their  quickest  recognition  of  the  Divine,  was  di- 
rected towards  the  soul  of  a  man  vindicating  its  grandeur, 
though  it  should  be  against  superhuman  powers.  In  propor- 
tion as  men  were  great,  beautiful,  and  good,  did  they  appear 
to  be  as  lesser  gods,  and  earth  and  heaven  to  be  filled  with 
the  same  race.  Thought,  conscience,  admiration  in  the  hu- 
man mind  were  not  personal  accidents  separately  originat- 
ing in  each  individual ;  but  the  sympathetic  response  of  our 
common  intellect,  standing  in  front  of  Nature,  to  the  kindred 
life  of  the  Divine  intellect  behind  Nature,  and  ever  passing 
into  expression  through  it.  When  this  feeling  of  the  Hellenic 
race  became  reflective,  and  organized  itself  into  philosophy,  it 
represented  the  universe  as  the  eternal  assumption  of  form  by 
the  Divine  thought,  which  we  were  enabled  to  read  off  by 
our  essential  identity  of  nature.  Hence  a  whole  series  of 
conceptions  quite  different  from  the  Hebrew  representations ; 
instead  of  Creation,  Evolution  of  being ;  instead  of  Interposi- 


OF   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  231 

tion  from  without,  Incarnation  operating  from  within ;  instead 
of  Omnipotent  "Will,  Universal  Thought ;  assigning  as  the 
ideal  of  man's  perfection,  not  so  much  obedience  to  Law,  as 
similitude  of  Mind  to  God ;  and  tending  predominantly  not  to 
strength  in  Morals,  but  to  beauty  in  Art.  These  two  opposite 
tendencies  had  run  their  separate  course,  and  expended  their 
proper  history ;  and  were  talking  wildly,  as  in  the  approach- 
ing delirium  of  death.  But  they  are  the  two  factors  of  all 
religious  truth :  and  to  fuse  them  together,  to  make  it  impos- 
sible that  either  should  perish  or  should  remain  alone,  the 
Christ  was  given  to  the  world,  so  singularly  balanced  between 
them,  that  neither  could  resist  his  power,  but  both  were  drawn 
into  it  for  the  regeneration  of  mankind.  In  the  accidents  of 
his  lot  given  to  the  one  race,  and  only  baffling  the  visions  of 
prophets  to  transcend  them ;  in  the  essence  of  his  nature,  so 
august  and  attractive  to  the  other  that  the  faith  in  Incarna- 
tion was  irresistible ;  presented  to  the  Hebrews  by  his  mortal 
birth,  and  snatched  from  them  by  his  immortal ;  stopping  by 
his  holiness  the  mouth  of  Law,  and  carrying  it  up  into  the 
higher  region  of  Faith  and  Love ;  in  the  Temple  wishing  the 
Temple  gone,  that  there  might  be  open  communion,  Spirit 
with  Spirit ;  translating  sacrifice  into  self-sacrifice ;  —  he  had 
every  requisite  for  conciliating  and  blending  the  separated 
elements  of  truth  which,  for  so  many  ages,  had  been  converg- 
ing towards  him.  But  if  this  was  the  function  providentially 
assigned  to  him,  and  for  which  the  divine  and  human  were 
so  blended  in  him,  it  is  a  function  which  could  not  be  accom- 
plished in  a  moment,  in  a  generation,  in  a  century.  It  is  an 
historical  function,  freely  demanding  time  for  its  theatre ;  and 
as  the  separate  factors  had  occupied  ages  in  attaining  their 
ripeness  for  combination,  so  must  their  fusion  consume  many 
a  lifetime  of  effervescing  thought,  ere  the  homogeneous  truth 
appeared.  The  words  of  Christ  are  not  in  this  view  the  end 
in  which  Revelation  terminates ;  but  the  means  given  to  us 
of  knowing  himself,  contributions  to  the  picture  we  form  of 
his  personality.  Nor  are  the  sentiments  of  his  immediate 
followers  about  his  office  and  position  in  the  scheme  of  Prov- 


232  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

idence  anything  more  authoritative  to  us  than  the  incipient 
attempts  made,  when  his  influence  was  fresh,  to  grasp  the 
whole  of  his  relations  while  only  a  part  was  to  be  seen.  The 
records  of  the  great  crisis  are  no  doubt  of  superlative  value, 
as  the  vehicles  by  which  alone  we  understand  and  feel  its 
power ;  but  their  value  is  lost  if  they  are  to  dictate  truth  to 
our  passive  acceptance,  instead  of  quickening  our  reason  and 
conscience  to  find  it :  they  stop  in  this  way  the  very  develop- 
ment which  they  were  to  lead,  and  disappoint  Christ  of  the 
very  work  he  came  to  achieve.  Human  elements  were  in- 
evitably and  fully  present  in  the  first  age  and  its  Scriptures, 
as  in  every  other;  and  the  transitory  ingredients  they  have 
left,  it  is  a  duty  to  detach  from  the  eternal  truth.  And  as 
conditions  of  finite  imperfection  cannot  be  banished  from  the 
central  era,  neither  can  the  guidance  of  the  Infinite  Spirit  be 
denied,  whether  among  the  Hebrew,  the  Hellenic,  or  the 
Christian  people,  in  the  ages  before  and  after.  In  that  new 
development  of  human  consciousness  and  knowledge  in  regard 
to  God,  which  we  call  Christianity,  all  the  requisite  condi- 
tions —  viz.  the  factors  taken  up,  the  Person  who  blends  them, 
and  the  continuous  product  they  evolve  —  include  Divine 
Inspiration  as  well  as  Human  Reflection,  —  the  living  pres- 
ence and  communion  of  the  Eternal  with  the  Transitory  Mind, 
of  the  perfectly  Good  with  the  good  in  the  Imperfect.  To 
disengage  the  one  from  the  other,  to  treasure  up  the  true 
and  holy  that  is  born  of  God,  and  let  fall  the  false  and  wrong 
that  is  infused  by  man,  is  possible  only  to  Reason  and  Con- 
science, is  indeed  the  perpetual  work  in  which  they  live ;  the 
denial  of  which  is  not  merely  Atheism,  but  Devil-worship, — 
not  the  bare  negation,  but  the  positive  reversal,  of  religion,  — 
the  virtual  affirmation  that  God  indeed  exists,  but  exists  as 
Un-reason  and  Un-good.  No  mechanical,  no  chronological 
separation  can  be  effected  of  the  Divine  from  the  Human,  the 
Revealed  from  the  Unrevealed,  in  faith ;  there  is  no  person, 
no  book,  no  age,  no  Church,  in  which  both  do  not  meet,  and 
require  to  be  disentangled  the  one  from  the  other ;  but  the 
perseverance  of  God's  living  and  self-harmonious  Spirit 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  233 

throughout  the  discordant  errors  of  dying  generations  enables 
the  men  most  apt  and  faithful  to  his  voice  to- know  more  and 
more  what  his  reality  is,  and  drop  the  semblances  by  which 
it  is  disguised.  The  effect  of  this  view  on  our  estimate  of 
ecclesiastical  literature  is  evident.  As,  according  to  it,  the 
Apostolic  period  is  not  exempted  from  critical  judgment,  so 
neither  are  succeeding  times  to  be  without  their  claim  on  re- 
ligious reverence.  The  canonical  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment fall  back  into  the  general  mass  of  literature  recording 
the  earliest  knowledge  and  consciousness  of  the  disciples, 
neither  detached,  as  a  mysterious  whole,  from  other  produc- 
tions of  their  time,  nor  excluding  the  greatest  diversities  of 
value  among  themselves.  They  exhibit  the  first  struggling 
efforts  —  not  always  concurrent  in  their  direction  —  of  an 
awakening  spiritual  life,  to  interpret  a  recent  Divine  manifes- 
tation, and  to  solve  by  it  the  problem  of  the  world's  Provi- 
dence. Their  very  freshness  and  proximity  to  the  great  fig- 
ure of  Christ  was  by  no  means  an  unmixed  advantage  to  these 
efforts;  and  they  were  not  so  complete  and  successful  as  to 
supersede  their  continuance  in  the  next  and  following  gener- 
ations, which  lay  under  no  incompetency  for  their  prosecution, 
and  are  as  likely,  so  far  as  antecedent  probability  goes,  to 
have  enriched  and  improved,  as  to  have  impoverished  and 
spoiled,  the  earlier  doctrine  of  Christ's  relation  to  God  and  to 
mankind.  The  chasm  thus  disappears  between  the  Apo.stolic 
age  and  its  successor ;  the  products  of  the  first  are  not  to  be 
accepted  simply  because  they  are  there,  nor  those  of  the  sec- 
ond rejected  because  they  are  absent  from  the  first ;  nor  is 
everything  to  be  admitted  on  showing  that  it  stands  in  both, 
and  even  had  a  tenure  long  enough  to  become  the  prescriptive 
occupant  of  the  Church.  The  Catholic  is  right  in  clinging  to 
the  continuous  thread  of  Divine  Inspiration  binding  the  cen- 
turies of  Christendom  together ;  and  in  maintaining  that  the 
expression  of  true  doctrine  grows  fuller  with  time.  He  is 
wrong  in  making  the  Spirit  over  to  an  hierarchical  corpora- 
tion ;  and  in  treating  the  ostensible  growth  of  doctrine  as  the 
mere  negation  of  heresies.  The  Protestant  is  right  in  rescu- 
20* 


234  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

ing  from  the  haze  of  uncertain  tradition  the  real  historical 
ground  of  his  religion,  and  setting  it  in  the  focus  of  an  intense 
reverence  ;  and  in  rejecting  whatever  cannot  be  adjusted  with 
the  clear  facts  and  essential  Spirit  of  that  primitive  Gospel- 
He  is  wrong  in  his  insulation  of  that  time  as  a  sole  authorita- 
tive age  of  golden  days,  in  which  the  faith  had  neither  error 
nor  defect,  and  from  which  it  must  be  copied,  with  daguerreo- 
type exactitude,  into  every  disciple's  mind.  Keep  the  positive 
elements,  destroy  the  negative  limitations  of  both  these  sys- 
tems, and  the  true  conception  of  Christianity  emerges.  As  a 
system  of  self-conscious  doctrine,  it  is  a  religious  Philosophy, 
starting  from  the  historical  appearance  of  Christ  as  an  ex- 
pression of  God  in  human  life,  and  always  detained  around 
this  one  object  as  its  centre ;  and  in  its  development  consult- 
ing not  the  idiosyncrasies  and  conceits  of  private  and  personal 
reflection,  but  the  devout  consciousness  and  spiritual  consensus 
of  all  Christian  ages  and  all  holy  men.  All  religion  is  the 
product  of  an  action  of  the  Infinite  mind  upon  the  finite :  in 
the  Christian  religion  that  action  takes  place  upon  souls  en- 
gaged in  the  contemplation  of  Christ  as  the  manifestation  of 
God's  moral  nature.  This  given  object  remaining  the  same, 
there  is  room  for  indefinite  expansion  and  variety  ;  and  every 
developed  form  is  to  be  tried,  not  by  its  date,  but  by  the  tests 
of  truth  relevant  to  religious  philosophy. 

How  far  M.  Bunsen  would  recognize  his  own  doctrine  in 
this  exposition  we  cannot  say ;  but  without  intending  in  the 
least  to  make  him  responsible  for  it,  we  think  it  does  not  es- 
sentially deviate  from  his  scheme  of  thought.  The  philosoph- 
ical aphorisms  in  which  he  has  embodied  his  speculative  faith 
follow  an  order  which  we  should  have  spoiled,  had  we,  for  our 
present  purpose,  so  brought  them  together  as  to  make  them 
speak  for  themselves.  And  though  they  display  the  same 
astonishing  command  of  our  language,  in  which  the  author 
never  fails,  the  cast  of  the  thoughts  is  so  Teutonic,  that  few 
English  readers,  it  is  to  be  feared,  will  appreciate  their  depth 
and  richness.  The  complaint,  which  we  have  heard  and  seen, 
that  they  are  wholly  unintelligible,  is  indeed  purely  ridiculous, 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  235 

except  that  it  sadly  illustrates  the  extent  to  which  reflection, 
and  even  feeling,  on  such  subjects  has  ceased  in  England.  M. 
Bunsen,  we  can  assure  our  readers,  knows  what  he  means, 
and  lucidly  states  what  he  means ;  and  those  who  miss  his 
meaning  have  for  the  most  part  no  slight  loss.  The  following 
sentences,  which  the  greatest  sufferer  from  philosophobia  may 
drink  in  without  convulsions,  will  explain  his  idea  of  Revela- 
tion, in  its  bearing  upon  the  use  of  written  records.  The 
mere  "  Natural  Religion  "  of  the  Deist,  he  observes,  was  — 

"  The  negative  reaction  against  the  equally  untenable,  un- 
philosophical,  and  irrational  notion,  that  revelation  was  noth- 
ing but  an  external  historical  act.  Such  a  notion  entirely 
loses  sight  of  the  infinite  or  eternal  factor  of  revelation,  found- 
ed both  in  the  nature  of  the  infinite  and  that  of  the  finite 
mind,  of  God  and  man. 

"  This  heterodox  notion  became  still  more  obnoxious,  by  its 
imagining  something  higher  in  the  manifestation  of  God's 
will  and  being  than  the  human  mind,  which  is  the  divinely- 
appointed  organ  of  divine  manifestation,  and  in  a  double  man- 
ner ;  ideally  in  mankind,  as  object,  historically  in  the  individ- 
ual man,  as  instrument. 

"The  notion  of  a  merely  historical  revelation  by  written 
records  is  as  unhistorical  as  it  is  unintellectual  and  materialis- 
tic. It  necessarily  leads  to  untruth  in  philosophy,  to  unreality 
in  religious  thought,  and  to  Fetichism  in  worship.  It  misun- 
derstands the  process  necessarily  implied  in  every  historical 
representation.  The  form  of  expressing  the  manifestation  of 
God  in  the  mind,  as  if  God  was  himself  using  human  speech 
to  man,  and  was  thus  himself  finite  and  a  man,  is  a  form  in- 
herent in  the  nature  of  human  thought  as  embodied  in  lan- 
guage, its  own  rational  expression.  It  was  originally  never 
meant  to  be  understood  materialistically,  because  the  religious 
consciousness  which  produced  it  was  essentially  spiritual ; 
and,  indeed,  it  can  only  be  thus  misunderstood  by  those  who 
make  it  a  rule  and  criterion  of  faith,  never  to  connect  any 
thought  whatever  with  what  they  are  expected  to  believe  as 
divinely  true. 


236  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

"  Every  religion  is  positive.  It  is,  therefore,  justly  called  a 
religion  '  made  manifest '  (offenbart),  or,  as  the  English  term 
has  it,  revealed;  that  is  to  say,  it  supposes  an  action  of  the  in- 
finite mind,  or  God,  upon  the  finite  mind,  or  man,  by  which 
God,  in  his  relation  to  man,  becomes  manifest  or  visible. 
This  can  be  mediate,  through  the  manifestation  of  God  in  the 
Universe  of  Nature ;  or  a  direct,  immediate  action,  through 
the  religious  consciousness. 

"  This  second  action  is  called  revealed,  in  the  strictest  sense. 
The  more  a  religion  manifests  of  the  real  substance  and  na- 
ture of  God,  and  of  his  relation  to  the  universe  and  to  man, 
the  more  it  deserves  the  name  of  a  divine  manifestation,  or  of 
Revelation.  But  no  religion  which  exists  could  exist  without 
something  of  truth,  revealed  to  man,  through  the  creation, 
and  through  his  mind. 

"  Such  a  direct  communication  of  the  Divine  mind  as  is 
called  Revelation  has  necessarily  two  factors,  which  are  unit- 
edly working  in  producing  it.  The  one  is  the  infinite  factor, 
or  the  direct  manifestation  of  eternal  truth  to  the  mind,  by 
the  power  which  that  mind  has  of  perceiving  it ;  for  human 
perception  is  the  correlate  of  divine  manifestation.  There 
could  be  no  revelation  of  God  if  there  was  not  the  corre- 
sponding faculty  in  the  human  mind  to  receive  it,  as  there  is 
no  manifestation  of  light  where  there  is  no  eye  to  see  it. 

"  This  infinite  factor  is,  of  course,  not  historical ;  it  is  inhe- 
rent in  every  individual  soul,  only  with  an  immense  difference 
in  the  degree. 

"  The  action  of  the  Infinite  upon  the  mind,  is  tie  miracle  of 
history  and  of  religion,  equal  to  the  miracle  of  creation. 

"  Miracle,  in  its  highest  sense,  is  therefore  essentially  and 
undoubtedly  an  operation  of  the  Divine  mind  upon  the  human 
mind.  By  that  action  the  human  mind  becomes  inspired  with 
a  new  life,  which  cannot  be  explained  by  any  precedent  of  the 
selfish  (natural)  life,  but  is  its  absolute  contrary.  This  mira- 
cle requires  no  proof;  the  existence  and  'action  of  religious 
life  is  its  proof,  as  the  world  is  the  proof  of  creation. 

"  The  second  factor  of  revelation  is  the  finite  or  external. 


OF   EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  237 

This  means  of  divine  manifestation  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  uni- 
versal one,  the  Universe  or  Nature.  But,  in  a  more  special 
sense,  it  is  a  historical  manifestation  of  divine  truth  through 
the  life  and  teaching  of  higher  minds  among  men.  These 
men  of  God  are  eminent  individuals,  who  communicate  some- 
thing of  eternal  truth  to  their  brethren ;  and,  as  far  as  they 
themselves  are  true,  they  have  in  them  the  conviction,  that 
what  they  say  and  teach  of  things  divine  is  an  objective  truth. 
They  therefore  firmly  believe  that  it  is  independent  of  their 
individual  personal  opinion  and  impression,  and  will  last,  and 
not  perish,  as  their  personal  existence  upon  earth  must. 

"  The  difference  between  Christ  and  other  men  of  God  is 
analogous  to  that  between  the  manifestation  of  a  part,  and  of 
the  totality  and  substance,  of  the  divine  mind."  —  Vol.  II.  p. 
60,  seq. 

The  newly-found  work,  like  other  productions  of  the  same 
period,  can  have  only  a  disturbing  interest  for  the  Roman 
Catholic  and  Orthodox  Protestant.  For,  in  conjunction  with 
previous  evidence,  it  shows  that  the  unbroken  unity  of  teach- 
ing is  altogether  a  fiction ;  that  what  afterwards  became  here- 
sy was,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century,  held  in  the 
church  of  the  primacy  itself,  and  by  successors  of  St.  Peter  ; 
that  the  clergy  of  Rome,  so  far  from  owning  the  apostolic  au- 
thority of  their  chief,  could  resist  him  as  heterodox ;  and  that 
the  contents  of  the  Catholic  system,  far  from  appearing  as  an 
invariable  whole  from  the  first,  were  a  gradual  synthesis  of 
elements  flowing  in  from  new  channels  of  influence  brought 
into  connection  with  the  faith ;  and  as  against  the  approved 
type  of  Protestant,  it  shows  that  his  favorite  scheme  of  dog- 
ma was  still  in  a  very  unripe  state,  and  that  further  back  it 
had  been  still  more  so ;  so  that  if  he  binds  himself  to  the  ear- 
liest creed,  he  may  probably  have  to  accept  a  profession 
which  he  hardly  regards  as  Christian  at  all.  But  from  the 
third  point  of  view,  which  assumes  that  development  is  an  in- 
herent necessity  in  a  revelation,  and  may  add  to  its  truth,  in- 
stead of  subtracting  from  it,  the  monuments  of  Christian  liter- 
ature from  the  secondary  period  have  a  positive  interest,  free 


238  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

from  all  uneasiness  and  alarm.  They  arrest  for  us,  in  the 
midst,  the  advance  of  theological  belief  towards  the  form  ulti- 
mately recognized  in  the  Church,  and  expressed  in  the  estab- 
lished creeds ;  they  render  visible  the  beautiful  features  and 
expanded  look  of  the  faith,  when  its  Judaic  blood  had  been 
cooled  by  the  waters  of  an  Hellenic  baptism;  and  though 
they  leave  many  undetermined  problems  as  to  the  successive 
steps  by  which  the  original  Hebrew  type  of  the  Gospel  in  Je- 
rusalem was  metamorphosed  into  the  Nicene  and  hierarchical 
Christianity,  they  fix  some  intermediate  points,  and  make  us 
profoundly  conscious  of  the  greatness  of  the  change. 

The  author  of  the  "  Philosophumena,"  for  instance,  would 
be  stopped  at  the  threshold  of  every  sect  in  our  own  country, 
and  excluded  as  heterodox.  He  crosses  the  lines  of  our  theo- 
logical definitions,  and  trespasses  on  forbidden  ground,  in 
every  possible  doctrinal  direction.  Cardinal  Wiseman  would 
have  nothing  to  say  to  him ;  for  he  is  insubordinate  to  the 
"  Vicar  of  Christ,"  and  profanely  insists  that  a  pope  may  be 
deposed  by  his  own  council  of  presbyters.  The  Bishop  of 
Exeter  would  refuse  him  institution ;  for  his  Trinity  is  imper- 
fect, and  he  allows  no  Personality  to  the  Holy  Ghost.  The 
Archbishop  of  Dublin  might  probably  think  him  a  little  hard 
upon  Sabellius ;  but,  if  he  would  quietly  sign  the  Articles, 
(which,  however,  he  could  by  no  means  do,)  might  abstain 
from  retaliation,  and  let  him  pass.  At  Manchester,  Canon 
Stowell  would  keep  him  in  hot  water  for  his  respectable  opin- 
ion of  human  nature,  and  his  lofty  doctrine  of  free-will.  In 
Edinburgh,  Dr.  Candlish  would  not  listen  to  a  man  who  had 
nothing  to  say  of  reliance  on  the  imputed  merits  of  Christ. 
The  sapient  board  at  New  College,  St.  John's  Wood,  would 
expel  him  for  his  loose  notions  of  Inspiration.  And  the  Uni- 
tarians would  find  him  too  transcendental,  make  no  com- 
mon sense  out  of  his  notions  of  Incarnation,  and  recommend 
him  to  try  Germany.  This  fact,  that  a  bishop  of  the  second 
and  third  centuries  would  be  ecclesiastically  not  a  stranger 
only,  but  an  outcast  among  us,  is  most  startling ;  and  ought 
surely  to  open  the  eyes  of  modern  Christians  to  the  false  and 


OF   EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  239 

dangerous  position  into  which  their  churches  have  been  brought 
by  narrow-heartedness  and  insincerity.  It  will  not  be  M. 
Bunsen's  fault  if  our  Churchmen  remain  insensible  to  the 
national  peril  and  disgrace  of  maintaining  unreformed  a  sys- 
tem long  known  to  have  no  heart  of  modern  reality,  and  now 
seen  to  have  as  little  ground  of  ancient  authority.  Again 
and  again  he  raises  his  voice  of  earnest  and  affectionate  warn- 
ing. As  a  foreigner  domesticated  among  us,  as  a  scholar  of 
wide  historical  view,  as  a  philosophical  statesman  who,  amid 
the  diplomacy  of  the  hour,  descends  to  the  springs  of  peren- 
nial life  in  nations,  as  a  Christian  who  profoundly  trusts  the 
reality  of  religion,  and  cannot  be  dazzled  by  the  pretence,  he 
sees,  with  a  rare  clearness  and  breadth,  both  the  capabilities 
and  the  dangers  of  our  social  and  spiritual  condition.  He 
sees  that  God  has  given  to  the  English  people  a  moral  mas- 
siveness  and  veracity  of  character  which  presents  the  grand- 
est basis  of  noble  faith  ;  while  learned  selfishness  and  aristo- 
cratic apathy  uphold  in  the  Church  creeds  which  only  stupid- 
ity can  sign  without  mental  reservations, — a  Liturgy  that 
catches  the  scruple  of  the  intellectual  without  touching  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  popular  heart,  —  a  laity  without  function,  — 
a  clergy  without  unity,  —  and  a  hierarchy  without  power. 
He  sees  that  our  insular  position  has  imparted  to  us  a  distinc- 
tive nationality  of  feeling,  supplying  copious  elements  for  coa- 
lescence in  a  common  religion ;  while  obstinate  conservatism 
has  permitted  our  Christianity  to  become  our  great  divisive 
power,  and  to  disintegrate  us  through  and  through.  He  re- 
spects our  free  institutions,  which  sustain  the  health  of  our 
political  life ;  but  beside  them  he  finds  an  ecclesiastical  sys- 
tem either  imposed  by  a  dead  and  inflexible  necessity,  or  left 
unguided  to  a  whimsical  voluntaryism,  which  separates  the 
combinations  of  faith  from  the  relations  of  neighborhood,  of 
municipality,  of  country.  With  noble  and  richly-endowed 
universities  at  the  exclusive  disposal  of  the  Church,  he  finds 
the  theological  and  philosophical  sciences  so  shamefully  neg- 
lected, that  Christian  faith  notoriously  does  not  hold  its  intel- 
lectual ground,  and  in  its  retreat  does  nothing  to  reach  a  firm- 


240  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

er  position  ;  but  only  protests  its  resolution  to  stand  still,  and 
raise  a  din  against  the  critic  or  metaphysic  host  that  drives  it 
back.  Is  there  no  one  in  this  great  and  honest  country  that 
has  trust  enough  in  God  and  truth,  foresight  enough  of  ruin 
from  falsehood  and  pretence,  to  lay  the  first  hand  to  the  work 
of  renovation?  Is  statesmanship  so  infected  with  negligent 
contempt  of  mankind,  that  no  high-minded  politician  can  be 
found  to  care  for  the  highest  discipline  of  the  people,  and  re- 
organize the  institutions  in  which  their  conscience,  their  rea- 
son, their  upward  aspirations,  should  find  life?  Has  the 
Church  no  prophet  with  faith  enough  to  fling  aside  creed  and 
college,  and  fire  within  him  to  burn  away  mediaeval  pedantries, 
and  demand  an  altar  of  veracity,  that  may  bring  us  together 
for  common  work  and  "  common  prayer  "  ?  Or  is  it  to  be  left 
to  the  strong  men,  exulting  in  their  strength,  and  storming 
with  the  furor  of  honest  discontent,  to  settle  these  matters 
with  the  sledge-hammer  of  their  indignation?  Miserable 
hypocrisy  !  to  open  the  lips  and  lift  the  eyes  to  heaven,  while 
beckoning  with  the  finger  of  apathy  to  these  pioneers  of  Ne- 
cessity !  Would  that  some  might  be  found  to  lay  to  heart 
our  author's  warning  and  counsel  in  the  following  sentences  :  — 
"  While  we  exclude  all  suggestions  of  despair,  as  being 
equally  unworthy  of  a  man  and  of  a  Christian,  we  establish 
two  safe  principles.  The  first  is,  that,  in  all  congregational 
and  ecclesiastical  institutions,  Christian  freedom,  within  limits 
conformable  to  Scripture,  constitutes  the  first  requisite  for  a 
vital  restoration.  The  second  fundamental  principle  is,  that 
every  Church  must  hold  fast  what  she  already  possesses,  in  so 
far  as  it  presents  itself  to  her  consciousness  as  true  and  effi- 
cacious. In  virtue  of  the  first  condition,  she  will  combine 
Reason  and  Scripture  in  due  proportions ;  by  virtue  of  the 
second,  she  will  distinguish  between  Spirit  and  Letter,  be- 
tween Idea  and  Form.  No  external  clerical  forms  and  me- 
diaeval reflexes  of  bygone  social  and  intellectual  conditions 
can  save  us,  nor  can  sectarian  schisms  and  isolation  from 
national  life.  Neither  can  learned  speculations,  and  still  less 
the  incomparably  more  arrogant  dreams  of  the  unlearned. 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  241 

Scientific  consciousness  must  dive  into  real  life,  and  refresh 
itself  in  the  feelings  of  the  people,  and  that  no  one  will  be 
able  to  do  without  having  made  himself  thoroughly  conver- 
sant with  the  sufferings  and  the  sorrows  of  the  lowest  classes 
of  society.  For  out  of  the  feeling  of  these  sufferings  and 
sorrows,  as  being  to  a  great  degree  the  most  extensive  and 
most  deep-seated  product  of  evil,  —  that  is,  of  selfishness,  — 
arose,  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  the  divine  birth  of  Christi- 
anity. The  new  birth,  however,  requires  new  pangs  of  labor, 
and  not  only  on  the  part  of  individuals,  but  of  the  whole  na- 
tion, in  so  far  as  she  bears  within  her  the  genns  of  future  life, 
and  possesses  the  strength  to  bring  forth.  Every  nation  must 
set  about  the  work  herself,  not,  indeed,  as  her  own  especial 
exclusive  concern,  but  as  the  interest  of  all  mankind.  Every 
people  has  the  vocation  to  coin  for  itself  the  divine  form  of 
Humanity,  in  the  Church  as  well  as  in  the  State  ;  its  life  de- 
pends on  this  being  done,  not  its  reputation  merely ;  it  is  the 
condition  of  existence,  not  merely  of  prosperity. 

"  Is  it  not  time,  in  truth,  to  withdraw  the  veil  from  our  mis- 
ery ?  to  point  to  the  clouds  which  rise  from  all  quarters,  to 
the  noxious  vapors  which  have  already  well-nigh  suffocated 
us?  to  tear  off  the  ma.sk  from  hypocrisy,  and  destroy  that 
sham  which  is  undermining  all  real  ground  beneath  our  feet  ? 
to  point  out  the  dangers  which  surround,  nay,  threaten  already 
to  engulf  us  ?  Is  the  state  of  things  satisfactory  in  a  Chris- 
tian sense,  where  so  much  that  is  unchristian  predominates, 
and  where  Christianity  has  scarcely  begun  here  and  there  to 
penetrate  the  surface  of  the  common  life  ?  Shall  we  be  sat- 
isfied with  the  increased  outward  respect  paid  to  Christianity 
and  the  Church  ?  Shall  we  take  it  as  a  sign  of  renewed  life, 
that  the  names  of  God  and  Christ  have  become  the  fa-;hion, 
and  are  used  as  a  party  badge  ?  Can  a  society  be  said  to  be 
in  a  healthy  condition,  in  which  material  and  selfish  interests 
in  individuals,  as  well  as  in  the  masses,  gain  every  day  more 
and  more  the  upper  hand  ?  in  which  so  many  thinking  and 
educated  men  are  attached  to  Christianity  only  by  outward 
forms,  maintained  either  by  despotic  power,  or  by  a  not  less 
21 


242  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

despotic,  half-superstitious,  half-hypocritical  custom  ?  when 
so  many  churches  are  empty,  and  satisfy  but  few,  or  display 
more  and  more  outward  ceremonials  and  vicarious  rites  ? 
when  a  godless  schism  has  sprung  up  between  spirit  and 
form,  or  has  even  been  preached  up  as  a  means  of  rescue  ? 
when  gross  ignorance  or  confused  knowledge,  cold  indiffer- 
ence or  the  fanaticism  of  superstition,  prevails  as  to  the  un- 
derstanding of  Holy  Scripture,  as  to  the  history,  nay,  the  fun- 
damental ideas  of  Christianity?  when  force  invokes  religion 
in  order  to  command,  and  demagogues  appeal  to  the  religious 
element  in  order  to  destroy  ?  when,  after  all  their  severe 
chastisements  and  bloody  lessons,  most  statesmen  base  their 
wisdom  only  on  the  contempt  of  mankind?  and  when  the 
prophets  of  the  people  preach  a  liberty,  the  basis  of  which  is 
selfishness,  the  object  libertinism,  and  the  wages  are  vice  ? 
And  this  in  an  age  the  events  of  which  show  more  and  more 
fatal  symptoms,  and  in  which  a  cry  of  ardent  longing  pervades 
the  people,  re-echoed  by  a  thousand  voices  ! "  —  III.  xv. 

Sorry,  however,  as  we  should  be  to  see  our  Roman  presby- 
ter disconsolately  wandering  from  fold  to  fold  in  modern 
England,  and  dismissed  as  a  black  sheep  from  all,  we  should 
not  like  to  find  him  metamorphosed  into  chief  shepherd  ei- 
ther, and  invested  with  the  guidance  of  our  ecclesiastical  affairs. 
Though  he  is  above  imitating  the  feeble  railing  of  Irenaeus  at 
the  heresies,  he  deals  with  them  in  the  true  clerical  style ; 
often  missing  their  real  meaning,  he  does  not  spare  them  his 
bad  word  ;  and  fancies  he  has  killed  them  before  he  has  even 
caught  them.  He  has  an  evident  relish  also  for  a  tale  of 
scandal,  as  a  make-weight  against  a  theological  opponent.  In 
the  "  Little  Labyrinth,"  he  had  told  us  a  story  about  a  Unita- 
rian minister,  who,  for  accepting  his  schismatical  office,  had 
been  horsewhipped  by  angels  all  night ;  so  that  he  crawled  in 
the  morning  to  the  metropolitan,  and  gave  in  his  penitential 
recantation.  And  now,  in  the  larger  work,  the  author  flies  at 
higher  game,  and  makes  out  that  Pope  Callistus  was  an  in- 
corrigible scamp ;  originally  a  slave  in  the  household  of  a 
wealthy  Christian  master,  Carpophorus,  whose  confidence  he 


OF   BAKLY   CHRISTIANITY.  243 

abused  in  every  possible  way.  First,  having  been  intrusted 
with  the  management  of  a  bank  in  the  Piscina  publica,  he 
swindled  and  ruined  the  depositors,  and  decamped,  with  the 
intention  of  sailing  from  Portus,  but  was  found  on  board  ship ; 
and,  though  he  jumped  into  the  sea  to  avoid  capture,  was 
picked  up,  and  condemned  by  his  master  to  the  hand-mill. 
Next,  being  allowed  to  go  out,  on  the  plea  of  collecting  some 
debts  which  would  enable  him  to  pay  a  dividend  to  the  de- 
positors, he  created  a  riot  in  a  Jews'  synagogue,  and,  being 
brought  before  the  prefect,  was  sentenced  to  be  flogged  and 
transported  to  Sardinia.  Thence  he  escaped  by  passing  him- 
self off  among  a  number  of  Christians,  released  from  their 
exile  through  the  influence  of  the  Emperor's  concubine,  Mar- 
cia,  and  on  the  recommendation  of  Victor,  the  Pope.  As  he 
was  not  included  in  the  list  of  pardons,  he  no  sooner  made  his 
appearance  in  Rome  than  his  master  sent  him  off  to  live  on  a 
monthly  allowance  at  Antium.  On  the  death  of  Carpophorus, 
he  seems  to  have  attained  his  freedom  by  bequest ;  and  his 
fertility  of  resource  having  made  him  useful  to  the  new  Pope 
Zephyrinus,  he  acquired  influence  enough  to  succeed  him  in 
the  Primacy.  We  must  confess  that  the  evident  gusto  with 
which  our  presbyter  tells  this  scandal,  the  animus  with  which 
he  accuses  Zephyrinus  also  of  stupidity  and  venality,  and  the 
predominance  in  his  narrative  of  theological  antipathy  over 
moral  disgust,  leave  a  painful  impression  on  the  reader  re- 
specting the  spirit  then  at  work  in  the  Apostolic  See.  And 
though  his  scheme  of  belief,  especially  in  relation  to  the  per- 
son of  Christ,  was  more  rational  than  the  definitions  of  more 
modern  creeds,  yet  we  fear  that  he  would  be  not  less  nice 
about  its  shape,  and  intolerant  of  those  who  move  about  in 
freer  folds  of  thought,  than  a  divine  of  the  Canterbury  clois- 
ters or  the  Edinburgh  platform.  His  quarrel  with  the  two 
popes  whom  he  abuses  shows  pretty  clearly  the  stage  of  de- 
velopment which  the  Christian  theology  had  then  reached. 
On  this  matter  we  must  say  a  few  words. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  precise  order  of  combination 
which  brought  the  Hebrew  and  Hellenic  ideas  of  God  into 


244  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

union,  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  two  termini  of  the  pro- 
cess. It  started  from  the  monarchical  conception  of  Jehovah, 
as  a  Unity  without  plurality ;  and  it  issued  in  the  Athanasian 
Trinity,  with  its  three  hypostases  in  one  essence.  Of  these, 
the  Father  expressed  the  Absolute  existence,  the  Son  the 
Objective  manifestation,  the  Holy  Spirit  the  Subjective  reve- 
lation of  God.  In  the  presbyter's  creed,  the  third  term  was 
not  yet  incorporated,  but  still  floated  freely,  diffused  and  im- 
personal. Leaving  this  out  of  view,  we  may  observe,  in  the 
remaining  part  of  the  doctrine,  two  principal  difficulties  to  be 
surmounted,  arising  from  the  double  medium  of  divine  objec- 
tive manifestation,  —  Nature,  always  proceeding,  —  and  Christ, 
historically  transient.  The  first  problem  is,  How  to  pass  at 
all  out  of  the  Infinite  existence  into  Finite  phenomena,  and 
conceive  the  relation  between  the  Father  and  the  Son ;  the 
second,  How  to  pass  from  Eternal  manifestation  through  all 
phenomena  into  temporary  appearance  in  an  Individual,  so  as 
to  conceive  the  relation  between  the  Son  and  the  Galilean 
Christ.  Thus,  excluding  all  reference  to  the  Holy  Spirit, 
there  were,  in  fact,  four  objects  of  thought,  whose  relations 
to  one  another  were  to  be  adjusted  ;  viz.  the  Father,  the  Son 
evolving  all  things,  the  Christ  or  divine  individualization  in  the 
Gospel,  and  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  human  being  with  whose 
life  this  individualization  concurred.  Among  all  these  there 
were,  so  to  speak,  two  clearly  distinct  Wills  to  dispose  of; 
that  of  the  man  Jesus  at  the  lowest  extremity,  and  that  of  the 
Supreme  God,  which  the  Jew,  at  least,  would  fix  at  the  upper. 
These  two  Wills  act,  in  the  whole  development  of  doctrine 
on  this  subject,  as  the  secret  centres  of  Personality ;  and  the 
remaining  elements  obtain  or  miss  a  hypostatic  character  ac- 
cording as  they  are  drawn  or  not  into  coalescence  with  the 
one  or  the  other.  The  volitional  point  of  the  Divine  Agency 
being  once  determined,  it  may  be  regarded  as  enclosed  be- 
tween the  Thought,  or  intellectual  essence  out  of  which  it 
comes,  and  the  Execution  by  which  it  is  realized ;  or  it  may 
be  left  undistinguished  from  these,  and  may  be  made  to  coin- 
cide with  either.  According  to  these  variable  conditions  arise 


OF   EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  245 

the  several  modes  of  doctrine  in  reference  to  the  Divine  ele- 
ment in  God's  Objective  manifestation.  The  differences,  for 
instance,  between  our  presbyter's  doctrine  and  Origen's,  will 
be  found  to  depend  on  the  different  points  which  they  seize  as 
the  seat  of  divine  volition,  and  the  germ  of  their  logical  de- 
velopment. Our  author,  exemplifying  the  Hebrew  tendency, 
seeks  his  initiative  up  at  the  fountain-head,  and  puts  himself 
back  before  the  first  act  of  creation ;  he  starts  from  the  One 
God,  with  whom  nothing  was  co-present,  and  fixes  in  Him  the 
seat  of  the  primeval  Will.  There,  however,  it  would  remain, 
a  mere  potentiality,  did  not  the  Eternal  Mind,  by  reflection  in 
itself,  pass  into  self-consciousness,  and  give  objectivity  to  its 
own  thought.  This  primary  expression  of  his  essence,  in 
which  it  enters  into  relation,  but  relation  only  to  itself,  is  the 
Logos,  or  Son  of  God,  the  agent  in  the  production  of  all 
things.  The  potentiality  is  thus  reserved  to  the  Father ;  the 
effectuation  is  given  to  the  Son ;  who,  coming  in  at  a  point 
lower  down  than  the  seat  of  Will,  and  simply  bridging  over 
the  interval  that  leads  to  accomplishment,  is  felt  without  the 
essential  condition  of  a  numerically  distinct  subsistence  ;  and 
has  either  the  instrumental  and  subordinate  personality  of  a 
dependent  being,  or  is  imperfectly  hypostatized.*  In  this  im- 
personal character  does  the  Logos  manifest  the  Divine  thought 
in  the  visible  universe ;  in  the  minds  of  godly  men,  which  are 
the  source  of  law ;  in  the  glance  of  prophets,  which  catches 
and  interprets  the  divine  significance  of  all  times ;  and  first 
assumes  a  full  personality  in  the  Incarnation.  Having  left 
the  primary  Will  behind  in  the  Father's  essence,  the  Logos 
remains  but  an  inchoate  hypostasis,  till  alighting,  in  the  human 
nature,  on  another  centre  of  volition.  As  if  our  author  were 
half  conscious,  in  reaching  this  point,  of  relief  from  an  ante- 
cedent uneasiness,  he  now  holds  fast  to  the  personality  which 
has  been  realized,  represents  it  as  not  dissolved  by  the  death 


*  To  Hippolytus  and  the  writers  of  his  period,  Dorner  ascribes  the  latter, 
preponderantly  over  the  former,  side  of  this  alternative ;  while  Hiinell  charges 
their  view  with  Sabellianism.  See  Dorner's  "  Entwickelungsgeschichte  der 
Lehre  von  der  Person  Christi,"  I.  p.  611,  seq. 

21* 


246  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

on  the  cross,  but  taken  up  into  heaven,  and  abiding  for  ever. 
It  is,  in  this  view,  the  two  extreme  terms  that  supply  the  hy- 
postatizing  power ;  of  the  others,  the  Logos  has  no  personal- 
ity but  by  looking  back  to  the  Father  ;  nor  the  Christ,  but  by 
going  forward  to  the  Son  of  Mary.  This  shows  the  yet  pow- 
erful influence  of  the  Judaic  Monarchianism,  and  the  embar- 
rassment of  a  mind,  setting  out  from  that  type  of  faith,  to 
provide  any  plurality  within  the  essence  of  God.  Origen,  on 
the  other  hand,  yielded  to  the  Hellenic  feeling,  and,  instead  of 
going  back  to  any  absolute  commencement,  looked  for  his 
Divine  centre  and  starting-point  further  down ;  and  took 
thence  whatever  upward  glance  was  needful  to  complete  his 
view.  As  the  Greek  reverence  was  not  touched  but  by  the 
Divine  embodied  in  concrete  life  and  form,  so  the  Alexan- 
drine catechist  instinctively  fixed  upon  the  SON,  the  objective 
Thought  of  God,  proceeding,  not  once  upon  a  time  or  ever 
first,  but  eternally,  from  Him,  as  the  initiative  position  for  his 
doctrine.  Here  was  placed  the  clearest  and  intensest  focus  of 
Will;  and  only  in  this  ever-evolving  efficient  were  the  full 
conditions  of  personality  realized.  The  Father  was  conceived 
more  pantheist jcally,  as  the  universal  vovs,  the  intellectual 
background,  whence  issued  the  acting  nature  of  the  Son.  In 
meditating  on  them  in  their  conjunction,  Origen  would  think 
of  the  relation  between  thought  and  volition  ;  our  author,  of 
that  between  volition  and  execution.  Both  doctrines  show 
the  imperfect  fusion  of  Hebrew  and  Hellenic  elements,  and 
illustrate  the  characteristic  effect  of  an  excessive  proportion  of 
each.  Where  the  Hebrew  element  prevails,  the  personality 
of  the  Son  is  endangered ;  where  the  Hellenic,  the  personality 
of  the  Father.  Even  our  presbyter's  doctrine  of  the  Son, 
however,  gave  too  strong  an  impersonation  to  Him  for  the 
party  in  Rome  who  sided  with  Zephyrinus  and  Callistus. 
These  popes  accused  him,  it  seems,  of  being  a  Ditheist ;  and 
themselves  maintained  that  the  terms  Father  and  Son  denoted 
only  different  sides  and  relations  of  one  and  the  same  Being, — 
nay,  not  only  of  the  same  Being,  but  of  the  same  irp6a-<airoi> ; 
and  that  the  spirit  that  dwelt  in  Clmst  was  the  Father,  of 


OF   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  247 

whom  all  things  are  full.  For  this  opinion  the  two  popes  are 
angrily  dealt  with  by  our  author,  and  charged  with  being  half 
Sabellian,  half  humanitarian.  His  rancor  justifies  the  sus- 
picion, that,  though  he  represents  the  party  which  triumphed 
at  Rome,  his  opponents  had  been  numerous  and  powerful,  as, 
indeed,  their  election  to  the  primacy  would  of  itself  show,  and 
that  even  his  own  imperfect  dogma  was  superinduced,  not 
without  a  protracted  struggle,  upon  an  earlier  faith  yet  remote 
from  the  Nicene  standard. 

And  this  brings  us  at  once  to  a  question  of  historical  re- 
search, which,  though  far  too  intricate  and  extensive  to  be  dis- 
cussed here,  we  feel  bound  to  notice,  as  far  as  it  is  affected  by 
the  newly  discovered  work.  How  long  did  it  take  for  the 
Christian  faith  to  assume  the  leading  features  of  its  orthodox 
and  catholic  form,  and  especially  to  work  itself  clear  of  Juda- 
ism ?  It  is  an  acknowledged  fact,  that  the  earliest  disciples, 
including  at  the  lowest  estimate  all  the  converts  of  the  first 
seven  years  from  the  ascension,  not  only  were  born  Hebrews, 
but  did  not  regard  their  baptism  as  in  any  way  withdrawing 
them  from  the  pale  of  their  national  religion  ;  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, they  claimed  to  be  the  only  true  Jews,  differing  from 
others  simply  by  their  belief  in  a  personally  appointed,  in- 
stead of  a  vaguely  promised  Messiah  ;  that  they  aimed  at  no 
more  than  to  bring  over  their  own  race  to  this  conviction,  and 
persuade  them  that  the  national  destinies  were  about  to  be 
consummated,  and,  so  far  from  relaxing  the  obligations  of 
their  Law,  adhered  with  peculiar  rigor  to  its  ritual  and  its 
exclusiveness.  So  long  as  none  but  the  twelve  Apostles  had 
charge  of  its  diffusion,  Christianity  was  only  a  particular  mode 
of  Judaism,  and  its  whole  discussion  a  ^T^o-ts  ra>v  'Iou8cu'&>j/. 
It  is  further  admitted,  that  the  first  inroad  upon  this  narrow- 
ness was  made  by  St.  Paul,  who  insisted  on  the  universality 
of  Christ's  function,  and  the  abrogation  of  the  Mosaic  Law  in 
favor  of  inward  faith,  as  the  condition  of  union  with  God. 
Nor,  again,  is  it  denied  that  this  freer  view  met  with  great 
resistance,  and  that  its  conflict  with  the  other,  apparent  through- 
out the  Pauline  Epistles,  formed  the  most  animating  feature 


248  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

of  the  Apostolic  age.  During  that  period,  two  distinct  parties, 
and  two  separate  lines  of  development  and  growth,  may  be 
traced ;  one  following  out  in  morals  the  legal  idea  into  ascet- 
icism, voluntary  poverty,  and  physical  purity,  and  in  faith  the 
monarchian  idea  into  theocratic  and  millenarian  expectations  ; 
the  other,  proceeding  from  the  notion  of  faith  to  substitute  an 
ideal  Christ  for  the  historical,  a  new  religion  for  an  old  law, 
the  free  embrace  of  divine  reconciliation  for  the  anxious  strain 
of  self-mortifying  obedience.  But  how  long  did  this  struggle 
and  separation  continue  ?  According  to  the  prevalent  belief, 
it  was  all  over  in  a  few  years ;  and,  by  the  happy  harmony 
and  concurrence  of  the  Apostles,  was  determined  in  favor  of 
the  generous  Pauline  doctrine ;  so  that  St.  John  lived  to  see 
the  Hebrew  Christians  sink  into  a  mere  Ebionitish  sect  out- 
side the  pale,  and  their  stiff  Unitarian  theology  disowned  in 
favor  of  the  higher  teachings  of  his  Gospel.  Against  this 
assumption  of  so  easy  a  victory  over  the  Jewish  tendency, 
several  striking  testimonies  have  often  been  urged.  Tertul- 
lian,  in  a  well-known  passage  of  his  treatise  against  Praxeas, 
describes  the  dislike  with  which  the  unlearned  majority  of 
believers  regard  the  Trinitarian  distinctions  in  the  Godhead, 
and  the  zeal  with  which  they  cry  out  for  holding  to  "  the 
Monarchy."  *  In  the  time  of  Pope  Zephyrinus,  as  we  learn 
from  Eusebius,  a  body  of  Unitarians  in  Rome,  followers  of 
Artemon,  defended  their  doctrine  by  the  conservative  plea  of 
antiquity  and  general  consent ;  affirming  that  it  was  no  other 
than  the  uninterrupted  creed  of  the  Roman  Church  down  to 
the  time  of  Victor,  the  preceding  pope ;  and  that  the  higher 
doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ  was  quite  a  recent  innova- 
tion.f  Nor  are  we  without  ecclesiastical  literature,  of  even  a 
later  date,  that  by  its  theological  tone  gives  witness  to  the 
same  effect  The  "  Clementine  Recognitions,"  written  somo- 
where  between  212  and  230,  occupy  a  dogmatic  position, 
higher  indeed  than  the  disciples  of  Artemon,  but  only  in  the 
direction  of  Arius,  and,  to  save  the  Unity  of  God,  deny  the 

*  "  Tert.  adv.  Prax.,"  c.  3.  t  Euseb.  H.  E.,  V.  28. 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  249 

Deity  of  Christ.*  Relying  on  such  evidence  as  this,  Priestley, 
in  his  "  History  of  Early  Opinions,"  and  his  controversy  with 
Bishop  Horsley,  maintained  that  the  creed  of  the  Church  for 
the  first  two  centuries  was  Unitarian.  But  this  position  was 
attended  with  many  difficulties,  so  long  as  the  present  canon- 
ical Scriptures  were  allowed  to  have  been  in  the  hands  of  the 
Christians  of  that  period,  and  recognized  as  authorities ;  for 
the  narratives  of  the  miraculous  conception,  the  writings  of 
Paul,  and  the  Gospel  of  John,  are  irreconcilable  with  the 
schemes  of  belief  attributed  to  the  early  Unitarians.  More- 
over, if  for  two  centuries  the  Church  had  interpreted  its 
authoritative  documents  in  one  way,  and  formed  on  this  its 
services  and  expositions,  it  is  not  easy  to  conceive  the  rapid 
revolution  into  another.  During  a  period  of  free  and  floating 
tradition,  there  is  manifest  room  for  the  growth  of  essentially 
different  modes  of  faith ;  but  after  the  reception  of  a  definite 
set  of  sacred  books,  the  scope  for  change  is  much  contracted. 
To  treat  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  as  an  innovation,  yet  as- 
cribe the  fourth  Gospel  to  the  beloved  disciple ;  to  suppose 
that  justification  by  works  was  the  generally  received  notion 
among  people  who  guided  themselves  by  the  authority  of  Paul, 
— involves  us  in  irremediable  contradictions.  Avoiding  these 
at  least,  possibly  not  without  the  risk  of  others,  the  celebrated 
theologians  of  Tubingen  have  maintained  a  bolder  thesis  than 
that  of  Priestley,  including  it  indeed,  but  with  it  also  a  vast 
deal  more.  Their  theory  runs  as  follows.  The  opposition 
which  St.  Paul's  teaching  excited,  and  of  which  his  letters 
preserve  so  many  traces,  was  neither  so  insignificant  nor  so 
short-lived  as  is  commonly  supposed ;  but  was  encouraged 
and  led  by  the  other  Apostles,  especially  James  and  John  and 
Peter,  who  never  heartily  recognized  the  volunteer  Apostle ; 
and  was  so  completely  successful,  that  he  died  without  having 
made  any  considerable  impression  on  the  Judaic  Christianity 
sanctioned  from  Jerusalem.  Accordingly,  the  earliest  Chris- 
tian literature  was  Ebionitish ;  and  no  production  was  in  higher 


*  See  Adolph  Schliemann's  "  Clementinen,  nebst  den  verwandten  Schriften 
and  der  Ebionitismus,"  Cap.  HI.  ii.  §§  8,  9. 


250  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

esteem  than  the  "  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,"  which,  after  being 
long  current,  with  several  variations  of  form,  at  last  settled 
down  into  our  Gospel  of  Matthew.  In  almost  all  the  writ- 
ings known  to  us,  even  in  Roman  circles  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, —  the  Shepherd  of  Hernias,  the  Memorials  of  Ilege- 
sippus,  the  works  of  Justin,  —  some  character  or  other  of 
Ebionitism  is  present,  —  millenarian  doctrine,  admiration  of 
celibacy  and  of  abstinence  from  meat  and  wine,  denunciation 
of  riches,  emphatic  assertion  of  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  and 
treatment  of  the  miraculous  conception  as  at  least  an  open 
question.  The  labors  of  Paul,  however,  had  left  a  seed  which 
had  been  buried,  but  not  killed ;  and  from  the  first,  a  small 
party  had  cherished  his  freer  principles,  and  sought  to  win 
acceptance  for  them;  and  as  the  progress  of  time  increased 
the  proportion  of  provincial  and  Gentile  converts,  and  the 
Jewish  wars  of  Titus  and  Hadrian  destroyed  the  possibility 
of  Mosaic  obedience  and  the  reasonableness  of  Hebrew  hopes, 
the  Pauline  element  rose  in  magnitude  and  importance. 
Thus  the  two  courses  of  opposite  development  ran  parallel 
with  each  other,  and  gradually  found  their  interest  in  mutual 
recognition  and  concession.  Hence,  a  series  of  writings  pro- 
ceeding from  either  side,  first  of  conciliatory  approximation 
only,  next  of  complete  neutrality  and  equipoise,  in  which 
sometimes  the  figures  of  Peter  and  Paul  themselves  are  pre- 
sented with  studiously  balanced  honor,  at  others  their  char- 
acteristic ideas  are  adjusted  by  compromise.  The  Clementine 
Homilies,  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  the  Epistle  of  James, 
the  Second  Epistle  of  Clement,  the  Gospel  of  Mark,  the  Rec- 
ognitions, the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  constitute  the  series 
proceeding  from  the  Ebionitish  side ;  while  from  the  Pauline 
came  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter,  the  Preaching  of  Peter,  the 
writings  of  Luke,  the  First  Epistle  of  Clement,  the  Epistle 
to  the  Philippians,  the  Pastoral  Epistles,  Polycarp's,  and  the 
Ignatians.  These  productions,  however,  springing  from  the 
practical  instinct  of  the  West,  deal  with  the  ecclesiastical  more 
than  with  the  doctrinal  phase  of  antagonism  between  the  two 
directions;  and  end  with  establishing  in  Rome  a  Catholic 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  251 

Church,  founded  on  the  united  sepulchres  of  Peter  and  Paul, 
and  combining  the  sacerdotalism  of  the  Old  Testament  with 
the  universality  of  the  New  Gentile  Gospel.  Meanwhile,  a 
similar  course,  with  local  modifications,  was  run  by  the  Church 
of  Asia  Minor.  Rome,  with  its  political  aptitude,  having 
taken  in  hand  the  questions  of  discipline  and  organization,  the 
speculative  genius  of  the  Asiatic  Greek  addressed  itself  simul- 
taneously to  the  development  and  determination  of  doctrine. 
Here  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  marks,  as  a  starting-point, 
the  same  original  struggle  between  the  contrasted  elements 
which  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  betrays  in  Italy ;  while  the 
Gospel  of  John  closes  the  dogmatic  strife  of  development 
with  an  accepted  Trinity  for  faith,  just  as  the  Ignatian  Epistles 
wind  up  the  contests  of  the  West  with  a  recognized  hierarchy 
for  government.  And  between  these  extremes  the  East  pre- 
sents to  us,  first,  the  intensely  Judaical  Apocalypse  ;  next, 
with  increasing  reaction  in  the  Pauline  direction,  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  Logos  idea  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Hebrews,  Co- 
lossians,  and  Ephesians ;  and  as  Montanism,  in  the  midst  of 
which  these  arose,  had  already  made  familiar  the  conception 
of  the  Paraclete,  all  the  conditions  were  present  for  combina- 
tion into  the  Johannine  doctrine  of  the  Trinity ;  and  then  it 
was,  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  second  century,  that  the 
fourth  Gospel  appeared.  The  speculative  theology  thus 
native  to  Lesser  Asia  was  adopted  for  shelter  and  growth  by 
the  kindred  Hellenism  of  Egypt,  and  gave  rise  to  the  school 
of  Alexandria.  In  the  whole  of  this  theory  great  use  is  made 
of  Montanism :  it  spans,  as  it  were,  the  interval  between  the 
parallel  movements  of  Italy  and  Asia ;  and  is  the  common 
medium  of  thought  in  which  they  both  take  place.  Singu- 
larly uniting  in  itself  the  rigor,  the  narrowness,  the  ascetic  su- 
perstitions of  its  Hebrew  basis,  with  a  Phrygian  prophetic 
enthusiasm  and  an  Hellenic  theosophy,  it  imported  the  latter 
into  the  doctrine,  the  former  into  the  discipline,  of  the  Church. 
The  Roman  Catholic  system  betrays  its  Jewish  or  Montanist 
origin  in  its  legalism,  its  penances,  its  celibacy,  its  monachism, 
its  ecstatic  phenomena,  its  physical  supernaturalism,  its  exag- 
gerated appreciation  of  martyrdom. 


252  CREED   AND    HERESIES 

Such,  in  barest  outline,  is  the  theory  which  M.  Bunsen 
characterizes  as  the  "Tubingen  romance."  Its  lending  princi- 
ple is,  that  the  antagonism  between  the  Petrine  and  Pauline, 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Hellenic  Gospel,  which  has  its  origin 
and  authentic  expression  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Galatians,  Ro- 
mans, and  Corinthians,  continued  into  the  second  century ;  de- 
termined the  evolution  of  doctrine  and  usage ;  stamped  itself 
upon  the  ecclesiastical  literature ;  and  ended  in  the  compro- 
mise and  reconciliation  of  the  Catholic  Church.  It  is  evident 
that,  in  the  working  out  of  this  principle,  the  New  Testament 
canon  is  made  to  give  way.  With  the  exception  of  the  great- 
er Pauline  Epistles  and  the  Apocalypse,  both  of  which  are 
held  fast  as  genuine  productions  of  the  Apostles  whose  names 
they  bear,  and  the  first  Gospel,  which  is  allowed  to  have  at 
least  the  groundwork  in  the  primitive  tradition,  the  received 
books  are  all  set  loose  from  the  dates  and  names  usually  as- 
signed to  them,  and  arranged,  in  common  with  other  products 
of  the  time,  according  to  the  relation  they  bear  to  the  Ebionit- 
ish  or  to  the  Pauline  school,  and  the  particular  stage  they  seem 
to  mark  in  the  history  of  either.  This  proceeding,  however, 
is  not  an  original  violence  resorted  to  for  the  exigencies  of  the 
theory ;  but,  for  the  most  part,  a  mere  appropriation  to  its  use 
of  conclusions  reached  by  antecedent  theologians  on  indepen- 
dent grounds.  The  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  is  the  only 
work,  if  we  mistake  not,  on  the  authenticity  of  which  doubt 
has  been  thrown  for  the  first  time,  —  in  our  opinion,  on  very 
inadequate  grounds.  In  this,  as  in  many  other  details  of  the 
hypothetical  history,  there  is  not  a  little  of  that  straining  of 
real  evidence  and  subtle  fabrication  of  unreal,  which  German 
criticism  seems  unable  to  avoid.  But  the  acerbity  displayed 
by  the  North  German  theologians  towards  the  Tubingen  crit- 
ics appears  to  us  unwarranted  and  humiliating ;  and  we  cer- 
tainly wish  that  M.  Bunsen,  whose  prompt  admiration  of 
excellence  so  nobly  distinguishes  him  from  Ewald,  could  have 
expressed  his  dissent  from  Baur  and  Schwegler  in  a  tone  still 
further  removed  from  the  Gottingen  pitch.  At  least,  we  do 
not  find  the  positive  assertion  that  the  Tubingen  theory  is 


OP   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  253 

finally  demolished  by  the  "  Philosophumena  "  at  all  borne  out 
by  the  evidence ;  and  are  inclined  to  think  that  the  case  is 
very  little  altered  by  the  new  elements  now  contributed  to  its 
discussion.  The  critical  offence  which  he  thinks  is  now  de- 
tected and  exposed,  is  the  ascription  of  a  late  origin  to  the 
fourth  Gospel,*  and  the  treatment  of  it  as  the  perfected  pro- 
duct, instead  of  the  misused  source,  of  the  Montanist  concep- 
tions of  the  Logos  and  the  Paraclete.  It  cannot,  however,  be 
denied,  that,  in  the  previous  absence  of  any  external  testimo- 
ny to  the  existence  of  this  Gospel  earlier  than  the  year  170,f 
the  internal  difficulties  are  sufficiently  serious  to  redeem  the 
doubt  of  its  authenticity  from  the  character  of  rashness  or 
perversity.  The  irreconcilable  opposition  between  its  whole 
mode  of  thought  and  that  of  the  Apocalypse  is  confessed  by 
M.  Bunsen  himself,  when  he  suggests  that  the  proem  on  the 
Logos  was  directed  against  Cerinthus,  —  the  very  person 
whose  sentiments  the  Apocalypse  was  supposed  to  express, 
and  to  whom,  accordingly,  it  was  ascribed  by  those  who  reject- 
ed it.  One  of  the  two  books  must  resign,  then,  the  name  of 
the  beloved  disciple ;  and,  of  the  two,  we  need  hardly  say 
that  the  Apocalypse  is  incomparably  the  better  authenticated. 
Moreover,  the  traditions  which  unite  the  names  of  James  and 
John,  as  the  authorities  followed  by  the  Church  of  Lesser 
Asia,  render  it  hard  to  conceive  that  their  doctrines  can  have 
taken  precisely  opposite  directions ;  and  that,  while  James 
represented  the  Judaic  Christianity  of  the  deepest  dye,  John 

*  M.  Bunsen  mast  have  some  authority  which  has  escaped  our  memory 
for  attributing  to  "  the  whole  school  of  Tubingen  "  the  opinion  "  that  the 
fourth  Gospel  was  written  about  the  year  165  or  170."  (I.  v.)  We  cannot 
call  to  mind  any  criticism  which  assigns  so  late  a  date.  Schwegler  uses 
various  expressions  to  mark  the  time  to  which  he  refers;  e.  g.  "about  the 
middle  of  the  second  century "  (Nachapost.  Zeitalter,  II.  354,  and  Monta- 
nismus,  p.  214);  "intermediate  between  the  Apologists  and  Irensens "  (II. 
369);  "  previous  to  the  last  third  of  the  second  century"  (II.  348);  "  in  the 
second  quarter  of  the  second  century  "  (II.  345).  Zeller  also  fixes  on  the  year 
150  as  the  time  when  the  Gospel  may  probably  have  first  appeared.  (Zeller'a 
Jahrb.,  1845,  p.  646.) 

t  The  earliest  testimony  is  that  of  Apollinaris,  of  Hierapolis  in  Phrygia, 
preserved  in  the  "  Paschal  Chronicle,"  probably  about  A.  D.  170- 175. 
22 


254  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

can  have  produced  the  standard  and  conclusive  work  on  the 
other  side.  In  particular,  the  well-known  fact,  that  the  Asi- 
atic Christians  justified  their  Jewish  mode  of  keeping  Easter 
by  the  double  plea,  (1.)  that  James  and  John  always  did  so, 
(2.)  that  Christ  himself  had  done  so  before  he  suffered,  seems 
incompatible  with  any  knowledge  of  the  fourth  Gospel,  which 
denies  that  Jesus  ate  the  passover  before  he  suffered,  and 
makes  his  own  death  to  be  the  passover.  How  could  this 
Quartodeciman  controversy  live  a  day  among  a  people  pos- 
sessing and  acknowledging  John's  Gospel,  which  so  bears 
upon  it  as  to  give  a  distinct  contradiction  to  the  view  of  the 
other  Gospels,  and  to  pronounce  in  Asia  Minor  itself  an  unam- 
biguous verdict  in  favor  of  the  West  ?  These  are  grave  diffi- 
culties, which,  after  all  the  ingenuity,  even  of  Bleek,  remain, 
we  fear,  unrelieved ;  and  in  their  presence  we  cannot  feel  the 
justice  of  M.  Bunsen's  sentence,  that  Baur's  opinion  is  "  the 
most  unhappy  of  philological  conjectures."  Everything  con- 
jectural, however,  must  give  way  before  real  historical  testi- 
mony ;  and,  if  new  evidence  is  actually  contained  in  the  "  Phi- 
losophumena."  every  true  critic,  of  Tubingen  or  elsewhere, 
will  be  thankful  for  light  to  dissipate  the  doubt.  Now,  it  is 
said  that  our  Roman  bishop,  in  treating  of  the  heresy  of  Ba- 
silides,  supplies  passages  from  the  writings  of  this  heresiarch 
which  include  quotations  from  the  fourth  Gospel ;  and  thus 
prove  its  existence  as  early  as  the  year  130.  This  argument, 
as  stated  by  M.  Bunsen,  appeared  to  us  quite  conclusive,  and 
we  hoped  that  a  decided  step  had  been  gained  towards  the  set- 
tlement of  the  question.  Great  was  our  disappointment,  on 
reading  the  account  in  the  original,  to  find  no  evidence  that 
any  extract  from  Basilides  was  before  us  at  all.  A  general 
description  of  the  system  bearing  his  name  is  given ;  but  with 
no  mention  of  any  work  of  his,  no  profession  that  the  words 
are  his,  and  even  so  little  individual  reference  to  him,  that 
the  exposition  is  introduced  as  being  a  report  of  what  "  Basili- 
des and  Isidorus,  and  the  whole  troop  of  these  people,  falsely 
say"  (xara^ewSerai,  sing.).  Then  follows  the  account  of  the 
dogmas  of  the  sect,  with  the  word  faa-lv  inserted  from  time  to 


OF   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  255 

time,  to  indicate  that  the  writer  is  still  reporting  the  senti- 
ments of  others.  The  singular  form  of  this  word  implies 
nothing  at  all ;  it  occurs  immediately  after  the  word  Karatyfv- 
8(Tai,  and  has  the  same  avowedly  plural  subject.  The  state- 
ment, therefore,  within  which  are  contained  the  Scripture  cita- 
tions, is  a  merely  general  one  of  the  opinions  of  a  sect  which 
continued  to  subsist  till  a  much  later  time  than  the  lowest  date 
ever  assigned  for  the  composition  of  the  fourth  Gospel.  If  the 
actual  words  of  any  writings  current  among  these  heretics  are 
given,  they  are  the  words  of  an  author  or  authors  wholly  un- 
known, and  to  refer  them  to  Basilides  in  particular  is  a  mere 
arbitrary  act  of  will.  The  change  from  the  singular  to  the 
plural  forms  of  citation  in  the  midst  of  one  and  the  same  sen- 
tence, and  the  disregard  of  concord  between  verb  and  subject, 
show  that  no  inference  can  be  drawn  from  so  loose  a  system  of 
grammatical  usage.  All  that  can  be  affirmed  is,  that  our  au- 
thor had  in  his  hand  some  production  of  the  Basilidian  x°P°si 
in  which  the  fourth  Gospel  was  quoted ;  but  this  affords  no 
chronological  datum  that  can  be  of  the  smallest  use.*  The 

*  We  will  give,  from  this  very  section  on  Basilides,  and  its  subsequent 
recapitulation,  three  examples  of  the  irregular  mode  of  citation  to  which  we 
refer:  (a)  of  the  singular  verb  with  plural  subject  expressed;  (6)  of  plural 
verb  with  singular  subject  expressed;  (c)  of  the  mixture  of  singular  and 
plural  subjects  in  the  same  sentence,  so  that  the  affirmation  belongs  indeter- 
minately to  either. 

(a)"l8<ap,fv  ovv  ircas  KaTa(pav£s  Bao-iXet'Srjs  ofiot)  Kal  'lo-i'&apos  *ai 
iras  6  TovTav  x°P°£»  ov%  ajrXas  Karaty  evdfrai  p.6vov  Mar^ai'ou, 
uAXa  yap  Kal  TOV  2a>r»)pos  avrov.  *Hi>,  (prjo-lv,  ore  TJV  ovdtv,  K.  r.  X. 
—  p.  230. 

(&)  BacriXeiTfys1  8f  Kal  O.VTOS  Xe'yei  eivat  6fbv  OVK  ovra,  n(iroiT]p.fvov 
Ko<rfJ.ov  e£  OVK  ovrcav,  .  .  .  .  ij  a>r  iabv  raov  fxov  *v  <ai(T<?  TT?"  r^v 

Xpa/JLOTOV  KOIKI\T}V  TT\T)6vV,  KO.I  TOVTO  (IVdl  (pa(T\  TO  TOV  KOCTfJLOV  OTTfp- 
fM,  K.  T.  X.— P-320. 

(c)  Ka!  8(8oiKf  ras  KOTO.  Trpoj3o\r)v  rwv  yeyovoT<av  oitri'as  6  Batrt- 
Xet'Sijs  ....  dXXa  fine,  <pr;(rl,  Kal  (yevero,  Kal  TOVTO  (<TTIV  o  \fyovo~iv 
ol  avftpfs  OVTOI,  TO  \fx&fv  viro  MaxTfcas,  "  Yevr)6riTO>  <p£>s,  Kal 

<j)u>s."     Tlodfv,  (j)r]crl.  yeyovt  TO  (f)£>s  ', Ttyove,  <f)rj(rlvt  t£ 

ovro)V  TO  OTtepfia  TOV  KOCT/JOV,  6  Xo-yo?  6  \f\0ds  y(vt]Qr\Tu>  cj>u>s, 
TOVTO,  (prjalvt  <OTI  TO  \tyofjifvov  ev  Tols  EiayyeXt'ow     "'Hi/  TO  < 


256  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

same  remark  applies  to  the  use  of  John's  Gospel  by  the 
Ophites.  That  they  did  use  it  is  evident ;  that  they  existed  as 
far  back  as  the  time  of  Peter  and  Paul  is  certainly  probable  ; 
yet  it  does  not  follow  that  the  fourth  Gospel  was  then  extant. 
For  they  continued  in  existence  through  two  or  three  centuries, 
dating,  as  Baur  has  shown,  from  a  time  anterior  not  only  to 
the  Christian  heresies,  but  to  Christianity  itself,  and  extending 
down  to  Origen's  time ;  and  to  what  part  of  this  long  period 
the  writings  belonged  which  the  author  of  the  "  Philosophu- 
mena"  employed,  we  are  absolutely  unable  to  determine.  We 
do  not  know  why  M.  Bunsen  has  not  appealed  also  to  a  quo- 
tation from  the  Gospel  which  occurs  (p.  194)  in  an  account  of 
the  Valentinian  system.  If,  as  he  affirms  (I.  63),  this  account 
were  really  in  "  Valentinus's  own  words"  the  citation  would 
be  of  particular  value  in  the  controversy.  For  it  has  always 
been  urged  by  the  Tubingen  critics  as  a  highly  significant  fact, 
that  while  the  followers  of  Valentinus  showed  an  especial 
eagerness  to  appeal  to  the  Gospel  of  John,  and  one  of  the  ear- 
liest, Heracleon,  wrote  a  commentaiy  upon  it,  no  trace  could  be 
found  of  its  use  by  the  heresiarch  himself.  From  this  cir- 
cumstance, they  have  inferred  that  the  Gospel  was  not  avail- 
able for  him,  and  first  appeared  after  his  time.  A  single 
clause  cited  by  him  from  the  Gospel  would  demolish  this  argu- 
ment at  once.  But  the  assertion  that  we  have  here  "  full 
eight  pages  of  Valentinus's  own  words  "  appears  to  us  quite 
groundless.  No  such  thing  is  affirmed  by  the  writer  of  the 
eight  pages.  lie  promises  to  tell  us  how  the  strict  adhe- 
rents to  the  original  principle  of  the  sect  expounded  their  doc- 
trine (as  fKflvoi  SiSdovcouo-i)  ;  and  then  passes  over,  as  usual,  to 
the  singular  (fuja-i,  returning,  however,  from  time  to  time,  to 
the  plural  forms,  —  de\ov<n,  \eyova-i,  &c.,  —  and  thus  leaving 
no  pretext  for  the  assumption  that  Valentinus  is  before  us  in 
person.  The  later  Gnostics  indisputably  resorted  to  the  Gos- 


TO  d\T)divov,  6  (j>a>Ti£(i  Trot/ret  uvdpa>irov  ep^o/if  i/of  €is  rov  Koarp.ov."  — 
p.  232.  Now  can  any  one  decide  whether  this  comment  on  the  "  Let  there 
be  light,  and  there  was  light,"  with  its  applications  to  John  i.  9,  proceeds 
from  "  Basilides  "  or  from  "  these  men  "  ? 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  257 

pel  of  John  with  especial  zeal  and  preference ;  and  if  their 
predecessors,  Basilides  and  Valentinus,  were  acquainted  with 
the  book,  it  is  surprising  that  no  trace  of  their  familiarity  with 
it  has  been  found ;  and  that  the  former  should  have  sought  to 
authenticate  the  secret  doctrine  he  professed  to  have  received 
by  the  name  of  Matthew  or  Matthias  instead  of  John.  It  de- 
serves remark,  that  the  citations  preserved  by  our  author  are 
made,  like  those  of  Justin  Martyr,  as  from  an  anonymous  writ- 
ing, without  mentioning  the  name  of  the  Evangelist;  a  cir- 
cumstance less  surprising  in  reference  to  the  Synoptics  alone, 
which  present  only  varieties  of  the  same  fundamental  tradi- 
tion, than  when  the  fourth  Gospel,  so  evidently  the  independent 
production  of  a  single  mind,  is  thrown  into  the  group.  The 
Epistles  of  Paul  and  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  fre- 
quently quoted  by  name  ;  and  why  this  practice  should  inva- 
riably cease  whenever  the  historical  work  of  an  Apostle  was 
in  the  hand,  it  is  not  easy  to  explain.  The  Apocalypse  is  men- 
tioned not  without  his  name.* 

For  these  reasons  we  are  of  opinion  that  the  question  about 
the  date  and  authenticity  of  the  fourth  Gospel  is  wholly  unaf- 
fected by  the  newly-discovered  work.  On  this  side,  no  new 
facilities  are  gained  for  confuting  the  Tubingen  theory.  The 
most  positive  and  startling  fact  against  it  is  presented  from 
another  direction.  We  know  that  the  system  of  Theodotus, 
which  was  Unitarian,  was  condemned  by  Victor  in  the  last 
decade  of  the  second  century .f  Now  Victor  was  the  very 
pope  to  the  end  of  whose  period,  according  to  the  followers  of 
Artemon,  their  monarchian  faith  was  upheld  in  the  Roman 
Church,  and  in  the  time  of  whose  successor  was  the  first  im- 
portation of  the  higher  doctrine  of  the  Logos.  On  this  com- 
plaint of  the  Artemonites,  Baur  and  Schwegler  lay  great  stress ; 
but  is  it  not  refuted  by  Victor's  orthodox  act  of  expelling  a 
Unitarian?  Undoubtedly  it  would  be  so,  if  Theodotus  were 
excommunicated  precisely  for  his  belief  in  the  uni-personality 
of  God.  But  his  scheme  included  many  articles ;  and  we 


*  Page  528.  f  Euseb.  H.  E.,  V.  28. 

22* 


258  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

know  nothing  of  the  ground  taken  in  the  proceedings  against 
him.  There  was  one  question,  however,  which,  however  in- 
different to  us,  was  evidently  very  near  to  the  feelings  of  the 
early  Church,  and  on  which  Theodotus  separated  himself  from 
the  prevailing  conceptions  of  his  time, —  viz.  At  what  date 
did  the  Christ,  the  Divine  principle,  become  united  with  Je- 
sus, the  human  being  ?  "  At  his  baptism,"  replied  Theodo- 
tus.* "  Before  his  birth,"  said  the  general  voice  of  the  Chris- 
tians. We  are  disposed  to  think  this  was  the  obnoxious  tenet 
which  Victor  construed  into  heresy ;  and  if  so,  the  strife  had 
no  bearing  upon  the  doctrine  of  the  personality  of  the  Logos, 
which  the  pope  and  the  heretic  might  both  have  rejected.  Of 
the  Unitarianism  of  that  time,  it  was  no  essential  feature  to 
postpone  till  the  baptism  the  heavenly  element  in  Christ. 
We  remember  no  reason  for  supposing  that  the  Artemonites 
did  so,  though  Theodotus  did ;  and  if  they  knew  that  the  ob- 
jection which  had  been  fatal  to  him  did  not  apply  to  them, 
their  claim  of  ancient  and  orthodox  sanction  for  what  they 
held  in  common  with  him  was  not  answered  by  pointing  to 
his  condemnation  for  what  was  special  to  himself.  But  is 
there,  it  will  be  asked,  any  evidence  that  the  Roman  Church 
attached  importance  to  this  particular  ingredient  of  the  The- 
odotian  scheme,  so  that  their  bishop  might  feel  impelled  to 
visit  it  with  ecclesiastical  censure  ?  We  believe  there  is,  and 
that  too  in  the  "  Philosophumena."  In  the  author's  confession 
of  faith  occurs  a  passage  which  produces  at  first  a  strange 
impression  upon  a  modern  reader,  and  appears  like  a  violence 
done  to  the  Gospel  history.  It  affirms  that  Christ  passed 
through  every  stage  of  human  life,  that  he  might  serve  as  the 
model  to  all.  Nor  is  this  idea  a  personal  whim  of  the  writer ; 
but  is  borrowed  from  his  master,  Irenasus,  who  gives  it  in 
more  detail,  and  winds  it  up  with  the  assertion,  that  Christ 
lived  to  be  fifty  years  old.'f  Irena^us  thus  falsifies  the  history 
to  make  good  the  moral ;  our  presbyter,  by  respecting  the 
history,  apparently  invalidates  the  moral :  for  it  can  scarcely 

*  "  Philosophumena,"  p.  258.  t  Iren.  Lib.  II.  c.  39. 


OF   EAKLY   CHRISTIANITY.  259 

be  said  of  a  life  closed  after  thirty-one  or  thirty-two  years, 
that  it  supplies  a  rule  nda-a  fjXiKir) ;  at  least  it  would  seem  more 
natural  to  apologize  for  its  premature  termination,  than  to  lay 
stress  on  its  absolute  completeness  The  truth  is,  there  was 
a  certain  obnoxious  tenet  behind,  which  these  writers  were 
anxious  to  contradict,  and  which  their  assertion  exactly  meets, 
—  viz.  the  very  tenet  of  Theodotus,  that  the  Divine  nature 
did  not  unite  itself  with  the  Saviour  till  his  baptism.  Ire- 
naeus  and  his  pupil  could  not  endure  this  limitation  of  what 
was  highest  in  Christ  to  the  interval  between  his  first  public 
preaching  and  his  crucifixion.  They  thought  that  in  this  way 
it  was  reduced  to  a  mere  official  investiture,  not  integral  to  his 
being,  but  externally  superinduced ;  and  that  such  a  conception 
deprived  it  of  all  its  moral  significance.  The  union  of  the 
Logos  with  our  nature  was  not  a  provision  for  temporary  in- 
spiration or  a  forensic  redemption ;  but  was  intended  to  mould 
a  life  and  shape  a  personal  existence,  according  to  the  im- 
maculate ideal  of  humanity.  To  accomplish  this  intention  it 
was  necessary  that  the  Logos  should  never  be  absent  from 
any  part  of  his  earthly  being ;  but  should  have  claimed  his 
person  from  the  first,  and  by  preoccupation  have  neutralized 
the  action  of  the  natural  (or  psychic)  element,  throughout  all 
the  years  of  his  continuance  among  men.  The  anxiety  of 
Irenseus's  school  to  put  this  interpretation  on  the  manifestation 
of  the  Logos,  their  determination  to  distinguish  it,  on  the  one 
hand,  from  the  mediate  communication  of  prophets  as  an  im- 
mediate presentation  (auroi//-*!  (j>avfpadf)vai),  and,  on  the  other, 
from  the  transient  occupancy  of  a  ready-made  man,  as  a  per- 
manent and  thorough-going  incarnation  (<ropKct>0j)i/<u  in  oppo- 
sition to  <f>aifrcuria  or  rpoTnj),  is  apparent  in  their  whole  lan- 
guage on  this  subject.  In  the  Son,  we  are  carried  to  the 
fresh  fountain-head  of  every  kind  of  perfection,  and  find  the 
unspoiled  ideal  of  heavenly  and  terrestrial  natures.  In  one 
of  the  fragments  of  Hippolytus,  published  by  Mai,  and  noticed 
in  M.  Bunsen's  Appendix,  this  notion  is  conveyed  by  the  re- 
mark, that  He  is  first-born  of  God's  own  essence,  that  he  may 
have  precedence  of  angels  ;  first-born  of  a  virgin,  that  he  may 


260  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

be  a  fresh-created  Adam ;  first-born  of  death,  that  he  might 
become  the  first  fruits  of  our  resurrection.*  This  doctrine  it 
is,  we  apprehend,  which  amplifies  itself  into  the  Irenrean  state- 
ment, that  the  divine  and  ideal  function  of  Christ  coalesced 
with  the  historical  throughout,  so  that  to  infants  he  was  a  con- 
secrating infant ;  to  little  children,  a  consecrating  child ;  to 
youth,  a  consecrating  model  of  youth;  and  to  elders,  a  still 
consecrating  rule,  not  only  by  disclosure  of  truth,  but  by  ex- 
hibiting the  true  type  of  their  perfection.!  The  teaching  of 
Theodotus,  that  the  heavenly  fl<a>v  remained  at  a  distance  till 
the  baptism,  was  directly  contradictory  of  this  favorite  notion ; 
and  might  well  produce  hostile  excitement,  and  provoke  con- 
demnation, in  a  church  where  the  Irenasan  influence  is  known 
to  have  been  powerful.  The  attitude  that  Victor  assumed 
towards  the  Theodotians  is  thus  perfectly  compatible  with 
Monarchian  opinions,  and  with  an  attitude  equally  hostile, 
in  the  opposite  direction,  towards  the  advancing  Trinitarian 
claims  of  a  distinct  personality  for  the  Logos.  Though  only 
the  one  hostility  is  recorded  of  Victor,  the  other  is  ascribed, 
as  we  have  seen,  to  his  immediate  successors,  Zephyrinus  and 
Callistus,  who  maintained  that  it  was  no  other  person  than 
the  Father  that  dwelt  as  the  Logos  in  the  Son.  The  facts 
taken  together,  and  spreading  as  they  do  over  the  periods  of 
three  popes,  afford  undeniable  traces  of  a  struggle  at  the  turn 
of  the  second  century,  between  a  prevalent  but  threatened 
Monarchianism,  and  a  new  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Personal- 
ity of  the  Son. 

After  all,  why  is  M.  Bunsen  so  anxious  to  disprove  the 
late  appearance  of  the  fourth  Gospel  ?  Did  he  value  it  chief- 
ly as  a  biographical  sketch,  and  depend  upon  it  for  concrete 

*  I.  p.  341. 

t  The  words  of  the  author  of  the  "  Philosophumena "  nre  these:  Tovroi/ 
eyvatpfv  fK  irapGevov  aa>/j.a  avfCkij^ora  Ka\  TOV  TraXaiov  avOpumov  8ia 
Kaivfjs  wXacrecor  irftyoprjKOTa,  ev  /3iw  Sta  tvaa-rjs  17X1*109  cX^Xvdora,  Iva 
iraa-j}  ^XiKi'a  UVTOS  vopos  y€vr)6fj  KOI  CTKOTTOV  TOV  iSioi/  avdpcorrov  Tracriv 
avdpanrots  fTTtSet^ry  Trapav,  Kal  6V  avrov  e\ty^rj  on  pnj8fv  eiroirjcrev  6 

GfOS  TTOVTjpOV.  —  p.  337. 


OF    EARLY    CHHISTIANITr.  261 

facts,  a  first-hand  authentication  of  its  contents  would  be  of 
primary  moment.  But  his  interest  in  it  is  evidently  specula- 
tive rather  than  historical,  and  centres  upon  its  doctrinal 
thought,  not  on  it.s  narrative  attestation  ;  and  especially  singles 
out  the  proem  as  a  condensed  and  perfect  expression  of  Chris- 
tian ontology.  The  book  speaks  to  him,  and  finds  him,  out 
of  its  mystic  spiritual  depths ;  sanctifies  his  own  philosophy  ; 
glorifies  with  an  ideal  haze  the  greatest  reality  of  history ; 
blends  with  melting  tints  the  tenderness  of  the  human,  and 
the  sublimity  of  the  divine  life ;  and  presents  the  Holy  Spirit 
as  immanent  in  the  souls  of  the  faithful  and  the  destinies  of 
humanity.  But  its  enunciation  of  great  truths,  its  penetration 
to  the  still  sanctuary  of  devout  consciousness,  will  not  cease 
to  be  facts,  or  become  doubtful  as  merits,  or  be  changed  in 
their  endearing  power,  by  an  alteration  in  the  superscription 
or  the  date.  These  religious  and  philosophical  features  con- 
verse directly  with  Reason  and  Conscience,  and  have  the  same 
significance,  whatever  their  critical  history  may  be ;  and  are 
not  the  less  rich  as  inspirations  from  having  passed  for  inter- 
pretation through  more  minds  than  one.  There  is  neither 
common  sense  nor  piety,  as  M.  Bunsen  himself,  we  feel  cer- 
tain, will  allow,  in  the  assumption  that  Revelation  is  neces- 
sarily most  perfect  at  its  source,  and  can  only  grow  earthy  and 
turbid  as  it  flows.  Were  it  something  entirely  foreign  to  the 
mind,  capable  of  holding  no  thought  in  solution,  but  inevita- 
bly spoiled  by  every  abrasion  it  effects  of  philosophy  and 
feeling,  this  mechanical  view  would  be  correct.  But  if  it  be 
the  intenser  presence,  the  quickened  perception  of  a  Being 
absent  from  none ;  if  it  be  the  infinite  original  of  which  phi- 
losophy is  the  finite  reflection ;  if  thus  it  speaks,  not  in  the 
unknown  tongue  of  isolated  ecstasy,  but  in  the  expressive 
music  of  our  common  consciousness  and  secret  prayer ;  —  then 
is  it  so  little  unnatural,  so  related  to  the  constitution  of  our 
faculties,  that  the  mind's  continuous  reaction  on  it  may  bring 
it  more  clearly  out;  and,  after  being  detained  at  first  amid 
sluggish  levels  and  unwholesome  growths  which  mar  its  di- 
vine transparency,  it  may  percolate  through  finer  media,  drop 


262  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

its  accidental  admixtures,  and  take  up  in  each  stratum  of 
thought  some  elements  given  it  by  native  affinity,  and  become 
more  purely  the  spring  of  life  in  its  descent  than  in  its  source. 
If,  before  the  fourth  Gospel  was  written,  the  figure  of  Christ, 
less  close  to  the  eye,  was  seen  more  in  its  relations  to  human- 
ity and  to  God ;  if  his  deep  hints,  working  in  the  experience 
of  more  than  one  generation,  had  expanded  their  marvellous 
contents ;  if,  in  a  prolonged  contact  of  his  religion  with  Hel- 
lenism, elements  had  disclosed  themselves  of  irresistible  sym- 
pathy, and  the  first  sharp  boundary  drawn  by  Jewish  hands 
had  melted  away ;  if  his  concrete  history  itself  was  now  sub- 
ordinate to  its  ideal  interpretation;  —  the  book  will  present  us 
still  with  a  Christianity,  not  impoverished,  but  enriched.  In 
proportion  as  its  thoughts  speak  for  themselves  by  their  depth 
and  beauty,  may  all  anxiety  cease  about  their  external  legiti- 
mation; their  credentials  become  eternal  instead  of  individ- 
ual; and  where  the  Father  himself  thus  beareth  witness, 
Christ  needeth  not  the  testimony  of  man.  It  cannot  be,  there- 
fore, any  religious  issue  that  depends  on  the  date  of  this 
Christian  record;  it  cannot  make  truth,  it  can  only  awaken 
the  mind  to  discern  it ;  and  whether  it  has  this  power  or  not, 
the  mind  can  only  report  according  to  its  consciousness  of 
quickening  light  or  stagnant  darkness.  The  interest  of  this 
question  cannot  surely  be  more  than  a  critical  interest,  to  one 
who  can  feel  and  speak  in  this  noble  strain :  — 

"  No  divine  authority  is  given  to  any  set  of  men  to  make 
truth  for  mankind.  The  supreme  judge  is  the  Spirit  in  the 
Church,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  universal  body  of  men  profess- 
ing Christ.  The  universal  conscience  is  God's  highest  inter- 
preter. If  Christ  speaks  truth,  his  words  must  speak  to  the 
human  reason  and  conscience,  whenever  and  wherever  they 
are  preached :  let  them,  therefore,  be  preached.  If  the  Gos- 
pels contained  inspired  wisdom,  they  must  themselves  inspire 
with  heavenly  thoughts  the  conscientious  inquirer  and  the 
serious  thinker  :  let  them,  therefore,  freely  be  made  the  object 
of  inquiry  and  of  thought.  Scripture,  to  be  believed  true 
with  full  conviction,  must  be  at  one  with  reason  :  let  it,  there- 


OF    EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  263 

fore,  be  treated  rationally.  By  taking  this  course,  we  shall 
not  lose  strength ;  but  we  shall  gain  a  strength  which  no 
church  ever  had.  There  is  strength  in  Christian  discipline,  if 
freely  accepted  by  those  who  are  to  submit  to  it ;  there  is 
strength  in  spiritual  authority,  if  freely  acknowledged  by  those 
who  care  for  Christ ;  there  is  strength  unto  death  in  the  en- 
thusiasm of  an  unenlightened  people,  if  sincere,  and  connected 
with  lofty  moral  ideas.  But  there  is  no  strength  to  be  com- 
pared with  that  of  a  faith  which  identifies  moral  and  intel- 
lectual conviction  with  religious  belief,  with  that  of  an  au- 
thority instituted  by  such  a  faith,  and  of  a  Christian  life  based 
upon  it,  and  striving  to  Christianize  this  world  of  ours,  for 
which  Christianity  was  proclaimed.  Let  those  who  are  sin- 
cere, but  timid,  look  into  their  conscience,  and  ask  themselves 
whether  their  timidity  proceeds  from  faith,  or  whether  it  does 
not  rather  betray  a  want  of  faith.  Europe  is  in  a  critical 
state,  politically,  ecclesiastically,  socially.  Where  is  the  power 
able  to  reclaim  a  world,  which,  if  it  be  faithless,  is  become  so 
under  untenable  and  ineffective  ordinances,  —  which,  if  it  is  in 
a  state  of  confusion,  has  become  confused  by  those  who  have 
spiritually  guided  it  ?  Armies  may  subdue  liberty ;  but  ar- 
mies cannot  conquer  ideas  :  much  less  can  Jesuits  and  Jesuiti- 
cal principles  restore  religion,  or  superstition  revive  faith.  I 
deny  the  prevalence  of  a  destructive  and  irreligious  spirit  in 
the  hearts  of  the  immense  majority  of  the  people.  I  believe 
that  the  world  wants,  not  less,  but  more  religion.  But  how- 
ever this  be,  I  am  firmly  convinced  that  God  governs  the 
world,  and  that  he  governs  it  by  the  eternal  ideas  of  truth 
and  justice  engraved  on  our  conscience  and  reason  ;  and  I 
am  sure  that  nations,  who  have  conquered,  or  are  conquering, 
civil  liberty  for  themselves,  will  sooner  or  later  as  certainly 
demand  liberty  of  religious  thought,  and  that  those  whose 
fathers  have  victoriously  acquired  religious  liberty  will  not 
fail  to  demand  civil  and  political  liberty  also.  With  these 
ideas,  and  with  the  present  irresistible  power  of  communicat- 
ing ideas,  what  can  save  us  except  religion,  and  therefore 
Christianity  ?  But  then  it  must  be  a  Christianity  based  upon 


264  CREED    AND    HERESIES 

that  which  is  eternally  God's  own,  and  is  as  indestructible 
and  as  invincible  as  he  is  himself:  it  must  be  based  upon 
Reason  and  Conscience,  I  mean  reason  spontaneously  em- 
bracing the  faith  in  Christ,  and  Christian  faith  feeling  itself  at 
one  with  reason  and  with  the  history  of  the  world.  Civilized 
Europe,  as  it  is  at  present,  will  fall ;  or  it  will  be  pacified  by 
this  liberty,  this  reason,  this  faith.  To  prove  that  the  cause 
of  Protestantism  in  the  nineteenth  century  is  identical  with 
the  cause  of  Christianity,  it  is  only  necessary  to  attend  to  this 
fact ;  that  they  both  must  sink  and  fall,  until  they  stand  upon 
their  indestructible  ground,  which,  in  my  inmost  conviction,  is 
the  real,  genuine,  original  ground  upon  which  Christ  placed  it. 
Let  us,  then,  give  up  all  notions  of  finding  any  other  basis,  all 
attempts  to  prop  up  faith  by  effete  forms  and  outward  things  : 
let  us  cease  to  combat  reason,  whenever  it  contradicts  conven- 
tional forms  and  formularies.  We  must  take  the  ground 
pointed  out  by  the  Gospel,  as  well  as  by  the  history  of  Chris- 
tianity. We  may  then  hope  to  realize  what  Christ  died  for, 
to  see  the  Church  fulfil  the  high  destinies  of  Christianity,  and 
God's  will  manifested  by  Christ  to  mankind,  so  as  to  make 
the  kingdoms  of  this  earth  the  kingdoms  of  the  Most  High." 
—  p.  172. 

We  have  given  our  readers  no  conception  of  the  variety 
and  richness  of  M.  Bunsen's  work ;  having  scarcely  passed 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  first  volume.  It  was  impossible  to 
pass  by,  without  examination,  the  recovered  monument  of 
early  Christianity,  whence  his  materials  and  suggestions  are 
primarily  drawn  ;  and  it  is  equally  impossible  to  pass  beyond 
it,  without  entering  on  a  field  too  wide  to  be  surveyed.  We 
can  only  record  that,  in  the  remaining  volumes,  which  are,  in 
fact,  a  series  of  separate  productions,  the  early  doctrine  of  the 
Eucharist  is  investigated,  and  the  progress  of  its  corruptions 
strikingly  traced  ;  the  primitive  system  of  ecclesiastical  rules 
or  canons,  and  the  "  Church-and-House  Book,"  or  manual  of 
instruction  and  piety  in  use  among  the  ante-Nicene  Chris- 
tians, are  carefully  and  laboriously  restored ;  and  genuine 
Liturgies  of  the  first  centuries  are  reproduced.  In  this  ar- 


OP   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  265 

duous  work  of  recovery,  there  is  necessarily  much  need  of 
critical  tact,  not  to  say  much  room  for  critical  conjecture. 
But  the  one  our  author  exercises  with  great  felicity  ;  and  the 
other  he  takes  all  possible  pains  to  reduce  to  its  lowest  amount 
by  careful  comparison  of  Syrian,  Coptic,  and  Abyssinian  texts. 
The  general  result  is  a  truly  interesting  set  of  sketches  for  a 
picture  of  the  early  Church ;  which  rises  before  us  with  no 
priestly  pretensions,  no  scholastic  creeds,  no  bibliolatry,  dry 
and  dead ;  but  certainly  with  an  aspect  of  genuine  piety  and 
affection,  and  with  an  air  of  mild  authority  over  the  whole  of 
life,  which  are  the  more  winning  from  the  frightful  corruption 
and  dissolving  civilization  of  the  Old  World  around.  That 
our  author  should  be  fascinated  with  the  image  he  has  re- 
created, and  long  to  see  it  brought  to  life,  in  place  of  that 
body  of  death  on  which  we  hang  the  pomps  and  titles  of  our 
nominal  Christianity,  is  not  astonishing.  But  a  greater  change 
is  needed  —  though  a  far  less  will  be  denied  —  than  a  return 
to  the  type  of  faith  and  worship  in  the  second  century.  To 
destroy  the  fatal  chasm  between  profession  and  conviction, 
and  bring  men  to  live  fresh  out  of  a  real  reverence  instead 
of  against  a  pretended  or  a  fancied  one,  a  greater  latitude  and 
flexibility  must  be  given  to  the  forms  of  spiritual  culture  than 
was  needed  in  the  ancient  world.  The  unity  of  system  which 
was  once  possible  is  unseasonable  amid  our  growing  varieties 
of  condition  and  culture  ;  and  the  methods  which  were  natural 
among  a  people  closely  thrown  together  and  constructing  their 
life  around  the  Church  as  a  centre,  would  be  highly  artificial 
in  a  state  of  society  in  which  the  family  is  the  real  unit,  and 
the  congregation  a  precarious  aggregate,  of  existence.  Noth- 
ing, however,  can  be  finer  or  more  generous  than  the  spirit  of 
our  author's  suggestions  of  reform ;  and  we  earnestly  thank 
him  for  a  profusion  of  pregnant  thoughts  and  faithful  warn- 
ings, the  application  of  one  half  of  which  would  change  the 
fate  of  our  churches,  —  the  destiny  of  our  nation,  —  the 
courses  of  the  world. 

23 


THE   CREED   OF   CHRISTENDOM. 


1.  The   Creed  of  Christendom ;  its  Foundations  and  Super- 
structure.    By  WILLIAM    RATHBONE    GREG.      London  : 
Chapman.     1851. 

2.  St.  Paul's   ^Epistles  to  the    Corinthians ;    an   Attempt   to 
convey  their  Spirit  and  Significance.     By  JOHN  HAMIL- 
TON THOM.     London :  Chapman.     1851. 

THESE  two  books  are  placed  together  without  the  least  in- 
tention to  intimate  a  resemblance  between  them,  or  to  repre- 
sent either  author  as  sharing  in  the  conclusions  of  the  other. 
They  are,  indeed,  concerned  with  opposite  sides  of  the  same 
subject ;  viewed,  moreover,  from  the  separate  stations  of  the 
layman  and  the  divine ;  and  are  the  expression  of  strongly 
contrasted  modes  of  thought.  Mr.  Greg  deals  principally 
with  the  external  vehicle  of  the  primitive  Christianity ;  Mr. 
Thorn  with  its  internal  essence.  The  one  seeks  in  vain  for 
any  outward  title  in  the  records  to  suppress  the  operations  of 
natural  reason ;  the  other  clears  away  from  the  interior  every 
interference  with  the  free  action  of  conscience  and  affection. 
The  one,  in  the  name  of  science,  demolishes  the  outworks  of 
ecclesiastical  logic  with  which  the  shrine  of  faith  has  been 
dangerously  guarded :  the  other,  in  the  name  of  Christ,  ex- 
pels both  priest  and  dogma  from  the  sanctuary  itself.  The 
one,  selecting  deep  truths  from  the  words  of  Jesus,  would 
construct  religion  into  a  philosophy ;  the  other,  with  eye  upon 


THE    CREED    OP    CHRISTENDOM.  2G7 

His  person  as  an  image  of  perfect  goodness,  would  develop  it 
from  a  sentiment.  As  all  opposites,  however,  are  embraced 
in  the  circumference  of  the  same  circle,  so  are  these  works 
complements  of  each  other  Mr.  Greg,  in  common  with  the 
Catholics  and  the  Unitarians,  evidently  looks  for  the  strength 
of  Christianity  in  the  Gospels  ;  Mr.  Thoin,  with  the  majority 
of  Protestants,  in  the  Epistles.  For  want  of  some  mediating 
harmony  between  the  two,  each  perhaps  requires  some  cor- 
rection :  the  historical  picture  of  Christ  saved  by  the  former 
is  but  a  pale  and  meagre  outline ;  while  the  Pauline  ideal 
presented  by  the  latter  is  a  glow  of  rich  but  undefined  color- 
ing. Mr.  Greg,  who,  in  spite  of  particular  errors,  manifests 
a  large  knowledge  and  a  masterly  judgment  in  his  criticism  of 
the  Evangelists,  appears  to  have,  in  his  own  sympathies,  no 
way  of  access  to  a  mind  like  that  of  Paul,  and  to  be  much  at 
fault  in  estimating  the  place  of  the  Apostle  both  as  a  witness 
and  a  power  in  the  organization  of  Christian  tradition  and 
doctrine.  Had  the  acuteness  and  severity  of  his  understand- 
ing been  a  little  more  qualified  by  such  reflective  depth  and 
moral  tenderness  as  Mr.  Thorn  brings  to  the  work  of  interpre- 
tation, his  religion,  we  fancy,  would  have  retained  a  less 
slender  remnant  of  the  primitive  Christianity. 

Measured  by  the  standard  of  common  Protestantism,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  second  of  these  books  would  be 
condemned  for  heresy,  and  the  first  for  unbelief.  These  ugly 
words,  however,  have  been  too  often  applied  to  what  is  fullest 
of  truth  and  faith,  to  express  more  than  a  departure,  which 
weak  men  feel  to  be  irritating,  from  a  favorite  type  of  thought. 
They  have  lost  their  effect  on  all  who  are  competent  to  medi- 
tate on  the  great  problems  of  religion,  and  are  fast  taking 
their  place  in  the  scandalous  vocabulary  of  professional  po- 
lemics. It  is  a  thing  offensive  to  just  men  when  divines,  who 
have  succeeded  in  smothering,  or  been  too  dull  to  entertain, 
doubts  which  rend  the  soul  of  genius  and  faithfulness,  and 
insist  on  a  veracious  answer,  meet  them,  not  with  sympathy, 
still  less  with  mastery,  but  with  the  commonplaces  of  incom- 
petent pity  and  holy  malediction.  And  the  offence  is  doubled 


268  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

in  the  eyes  of  instructed  men,  who  know  the  state  to  which 
Biblical  criticism  has  brought  the  theology  of  the  Reformation. 
It  is  notorious  that,  in  the  revolt  from  Rome,  the  Scriptures 
—  like  a  dictator  suddenly  created  for  the  perils  of  a  crisis  — 
were  forced  into  a  position  where  it  was  impossible  for  them 
permanently  to  repose ;  that  they  cannot  be  treated  as  infalli- 
ble oracles  of  either  fact  or  doctrine,  and  were  never  meant  to 
bear  the  weight  of  such  unnatural  claims  ;  that  the  authority 
once  concentrated  in  them,  and  held  even  against  the  reason 
and  conscience,  must  now  be  distributed,  and  ask  their  con- 
currence. These  are  not  questionable  positions,  but  so  irre- 
sistibly established,  that  learning  of  the  highest  order  would 
no  more  listen  to  an  argument  against  them,  than  Herschel  or 
Airy  to  a  disquisition  against  the  rotation  of  the  earth.  When 
a  clergyman,  therefore,  treats  them  with  horror,  and  de- 
nounces them  as  infidelity,  he  produces  no  conviction,  except 
that  he  himself  is  either  ill-informed  or  insincere.  Profes- 
sional reproaches  against  a  book  so  manly  and  modest,  so 
evidently  truth-loving,  so  high-minded  and  devout,  as  this  of 
Mr.  Greg's,  are  but  a  melancholy  imbecility.  We  may  hold  to 
many  things  which  he  resigns ;  we  may  think  him  wrong  in 
the  date  of  a  Gospel  or  the  construction  of  a  miracle ;  we 
may  even  dissent  from  his  estimate  of  the  grounds  of  immor- 
tal hope  and  the  ways  of  eternal  Providence  :  but  we  do  not 
envy,  and  cannot  understand,  the  religion  which  can  feel  no 
thankful  communion  witli  thought  so  elevated,  and  trust  so 
sound  and  real.  No  candid  reader  of  the  "  Creed  of  Chris- 
tendom "  can  close  the  book  without  the  secret  acknowledg- 
ment that  it  is  a  model  of  honest  investigation  and  clear 
exposition ;  that  it  is  conceived  in  the  true  spirit  of  serious 
and  faithful  research  ;  and  that  whatever  the  author  wants  of 
being  an  ecclesiastical  Christian  is  plainly  not  essential  to  the 
noble  guidance  of  life,  and  the  devout  earnestness  of  the 
affections. 

It  is  highly  honorable  to  an  English  layman,  amid  the 
pressure  of  affairs,  to  take  up  a  class  of  critical  inquiries, 
which  the  clergy  seem  to  have  abandoned  for  a  narrower  and 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  269 

more  passionate  polemic.  It  is  a  remarkable  characteristic  of 
the  present  age,  that,  when  the  most  startling  attacks  are  made 
upon  the  very  foundations  of  existing  churches,  nobody  repels 
them.  Nothing  is  offered  to  break  their  effect,  except  the 
inertia  of  the  mass  that  rests  upon  the  base  assailed.  For 
every  great  sceptical  work  of  the  last  century  there  was  some 
score  of  reputable  answers  ;  but  half  a  dozen  books  of  the 
same  tendency  have  appeared  within  a  few  years,  all  of  which 
have  been  copiously  reviewed,  have  spread  excitement  over  a 
wide  surface,  and  set  an  immense  amount  of  theological  hair 
on  end,  but  not  one  of  which  has  received  any  adequate  reply. 
Yet  the  slightest  of  these  productions  would  favorably  com- 
pare, in  all  the  requisites  for  successful  persuasion,  —  in  learn- 
ing, in  temper,  in  acuteness,  —  with  the  best  of  the  last  age, 
excepting  only  the  philosophical  disquisitions  of  Hume  and 
the  ecclesiastical  chapters  of  Gibbon.  The  first  in  time, — 
Hennell's  "  Inquiry  into  the  Origin  of  Christianity,"  —  though 
the  most  open  to  refutation,  was  permitted  to  pass  through  an 
unmolested  existence  ;  and  its  influence,  considerable  in  itself, 
and  increased  by  the  sweet  and  truthful  character  of  the 
author,  is  still  traceable  in  the  pages  of  Mr.  Greg.  To  the 
effect  of  Strauss's  extraordinary  work,  the  good  Neander's 
Leben  Jesu  offers  but  a  mild  resistance,  and  is  itself,  through 
the  extent  of  its  concessions,  an  open  proclamation  that  the 
problems  of  theology  can  never  be  restored  to  the  state  in 
which  all  churches  assume  them  to  be.  Parker  was  excom- 
municated by  his  sect ;  but  his  "  Discourse  of  Matters  per- 
taining to  Religion  "  has  walked  the  course  unchallenged,  and 
displayed  the  splendor  of  its  gifts,  within  the  entire  lines  of 
the  English  language.  Newman,  Foxton,  and  Greg  have 
since  entered  their  names  on  the  index  expurgatorius  of 
Orthodoxy ;  but  they  also  will  be  simply  excluded  from  the 
sacred  circle  of  readers  bound  over  not  to  think  ;  and,  beyond 
this,  will  make  their  converts  undisturbed,  and  accumulate 
fresh  charges  of  threatening  power  in  the  intellectual  atmo- 
sphere which  surrounds  the  Church.  Whence  this  pusillani- 
mous apathy  ?  Is  it  forgotten  that  creeds  always  assailed  and 
23* 


270  THE    CREED    OP    CHRISTENDOM. 

never  defended  are  sure  to  perish  ?  Or  is  it  felt  that  the 
defence,  to  be  sound  and  strong,  must  be  so  partial  —  so  lim- 
ited to  points  of  detail  —  as  to  promise  a  mere  diversion, 
instead  of  a  repulse,  and  be  more  dangerous  than  the  attitude 
of  passiveness  ?  Or  does  the  Church  resignedly  give  up  her 
hold  on  the  class  of  earnest,  intellectual  men  \vho  cannot 
degrade  religion  into  a  second-hand  tradition,  but  must  "  know 
what  they  worship  "  ?  Certain  it  is  that  her  whole  activity 
has  long  abandoned  this  class,  and  addressed  itself  exclusively 
to  the  narrower  and  lower  order  of  mind,  whose  vision  is 
bounded  by  the  periphery  of  a  given  creed,  and  whose  life  is 
satisfied  with  the  squabbles  and  the  gossip  of  articles  forced 
into  neighborhood,  but  no  longer  on  speaking  terms.  If  the 
efficacy  of  "holy  orders"  is  called  in  question,  streams  of 
sacerdotal  refutation  flow  from  the  press ;  but  if  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  twelve  Apostles  is  denied,  it  is  a  thing  that  neither 
bishop  nor  priest  will  care  to  vindicate.  If  a  word  of  mis- 
take is  uttered  about  the  drops  of  water  on  the  face  of  a 
baptized  baby,  it  conjures  up  a  storm  that  rolls  from  diocese 
to  diocese ;  but  if  you  say  that  pure  religion  has  no  rite  or 
sacrament  at  all,  the  ecclesiastic  atmosphere  remains  still  as  a 
Quaker's  silent  meeting.  The  deepest  interest  is  felt  about  the 
origin  of  liturgies,  and  the  history  of  articles,  but  nobody  heeds 
the  most  staggering  evidence  that  three  of  the  Gospels  are 
second-hand  aggregations  of  hearsay  reports,  and  the  fourth 
of  questionable  authenticity.  You  deny  the  self-consistency 
of  the  Church  of  England  and  call  it  a  compromise ;  and  the 
sudden  rustle  of  gowns  and  sleeves  proclaims  a  great  sensa- 
tion. You  analyze  the  accounts  of  Christ's  resurrection ;  you 
ask  whether  they  are  not  discrepant ;  you  point  out  that, 
apparently,  the  oldest  record  (Mark's)  contained,  in  its  origi- 
nal form,  no  account  of  the  event  at  all,  and  that  the  others 
bear  seeming  traces  of  distinct  and  incompatible  traditions. 
You  cry  aloud  for  help  in  this  perplexity,  and  hold  yourselves 
ready  to  follow  any  vestiges  of  truth ;  and,  except  that  the 
creeds  are  still  muttered  every  Sunday,  all  the  oracles  are 
dumb.  If  you  want  to  find  the  true  magic  pass  into  heaven, 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  271 

scores  of  rival  professors  press  round  you  with  obtrusive 
supply  :  if  you  ask  in  your  sorrow,  Who  can  tell  me  whether 
there  be  a  heaven  at  all  ?  every  soul  will  keep  aloof  and  leave 
you  alone.  All  men  that  bring  from  God  a  fresh,  deep  na- 
ture, all  in  whom  religious  wants  live  with  eager  power,  and 
who  yet  are  too  clear  of  soul  to  unthink  a  thought  and  falsify 
a  truth,  receive  in  these  days  no  help  and  no  response.  The 
Church  feels  its  interest,  as  an  educated  corporation,  to  con- 
sist in  overlaying  and  covering  up  the  foundations  of  faith  with 
huge  piles  of  curious  learning,  history,  and  art,  which,  by 
affording  endless  occupation,  may  detain  men  from  search 
after  the  living  rock,  or  notice  of  the  undermining  flood. 
And,  as  an  established  corporation,  she  reh'es  on  the  lazy  con- 
servatism of  mental  possession ;  on  the  dislike  felt  by  the 
comfortable  classes  towards  the  trouble  of  thought  and  the 
disturbance  of  feeling,  and  their  usual  willingness  to  hand 
over  these  operations  to  the  prayer-book  and  the  priest  We 
are  grateful  to  Mr.  Greg  for  shaking  this  ignoble  and  preca- 
rious reliance,  which  he  notices  hi  these  admirable  sen- 
tences. 

"  A  more  genuine  and  important  objection  to  the  conse- 
quences of  our  views  is  felt  by  indolent  minds  on  their  own 
account.  They  shrink  from  the  toil  of  working  out  truth  for 
themselves  out  of  the  materials  which  Providence  has  placed 
before  them.  They  long  for  the  precious  metal,  but  loathe 
the  rude  ore  out  of  which  it  has  to  be  extricated  by  the 
laborious  alchemy  of  thought.  A  ready-made  creed  is  the 
paradise  of  their  lazy  dreams.  A  string  of  authoritative, 
dogmatic  propositions  comprises  the  whole  mental  wealth 
which  they  desire.  The  volume  of  nature  —  the  volume  of 
history  —  the  volume  of  life  —  appall  and  terrify  them.  Such 
men  are  the  materials  out  of  whom  good  catholics  of  all  sects 
are  made.  They  form  the  uninquiring  and  submissive  flocks 
which  rejoice  the  hearts  of  all  priesthoods.  Let  such  cling  to 
the  faith  of  their  forefathers,  if  they  can.  But  men  whose 
minds  are  cast  in  a  nobler  mould,  and  are  instinct  with  a 
diviner  life,  —  who  love  truth  more  than  rest,  and  the  peace  of 


272  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

Heaven  rather  than  the  peace  of  Eden,  —  to  whom  '  a  loftier 
being  brings  severer  cares,'  — 

'  Who  know  man  does  not  live  by  joy  alone, 
But  by  the  presence  of  the  power  of  God,' — 

such  must  cast  behind  them  the  hope  of  any  repose  or  tran- 
quillity, save  that  which  is  the  last  reward  of  long  agonies  of 
thought ;  they  must  relinquish  all  prospect  of  any  heaven, 
save  that  of  which  tribulation  is  the  avenue  and  portal ;  they 
must  gird  up  their  loins  and  trim  their  lamp  for  a  work  which 
cannot  be  put  by,  and  which  must  not  be  negligently  done. 
'  He,'  says  Zschokke,  '  who  does  not  like  living  in  the  fur- 
nished lodgings  of  tradition,  must  build  his  own  house,  his 
own  system  of  thought  and  faith  for  himself.'  "  —  p.  242. 

The  work  of  Mr.  Greg  derives  its  interest,  not  from  any- 
thing in  it  that  will  be  new  to  the  studious  theologian,  but 
from  the  freshness  and  force  with  which  it  presents  the  results 
of  the  author's  reading  and  reflection  on  both  the  claims  and 
the  contents  of  Scripture.  Adopting  the  ordinary  notion  of 
"  inspiration,"  as  equivalent  to  a  supernaturally  provided 
"infallibility,"  he  reviews  and  condemns  the  reasonings  by 
which  this  attribute  has  been  associated  with  the  Bible  ;  and 
decides  that  the  mere  discovery  of  a  statement  in  the  Scrip- 
tures is  no  sufficient  reason  for  our  implicit  reception  of  it. 
Having  cleared  away  this  obstacle  to  all  intelligent  criticism, 
he  pursues  his  way,  chiefly  under  the  guidance  of  De  Wette, 
through  the  earlier  literature  of  the  Hebrews ;  and  adds 
another  to  the  many  exposures  of  the  humiliating  attempts, 
on  the  part  of  English  divines,  to  reconcile  the  cosmogony  of 
Genesis  with  modern  science ;  attempts  which  we  should  call 
obsolete,  did  we  not  remember  that  Buckland  and  Whewell 
are  both  living,  and  have  not  yet  attained  the  episcopal  bench. 
Mr.  Greg  adopts  the  views  of  which  Baur  is  the  best  known 
recent  expositor,  but  which  Lessing  long  ago  traced  out,  as  to 
the  gradual  formation  of  the  Hebrew  monotheism ;  and  shows 
the  striking  contrast  between  the  family  Jehovah  of  the  Pa- 
triarchs and  the  universal  God  of  the  later  Prophets.  What- 
ever be  the  origin  of  the  doctrine  of  a  Messiah,  and  under 


THK    CKKliD    OF    C1IU1STENDOM.  273 

whatever  varieties  it  appeared,  it  never  pointed,  the  author 
conceives,  to  such  a  person  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  or  such  a 
product  as  the  Christian  Church ;  and  it  is  only  by  perverse 
interpretations,  unendurable  out  of  the  field  of  theology,  that 
any  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  can  be  made  out  to  pre- 
figure the  events  in  the  New.  In  the  argument,  therefore, 
between  the  early  missionaries  of  the  Gospel  and  the  uncon- 
vinced Jews,  Mr.  Greg  maintains  that  the  latter  were  the 
more  faithful  to  their  sacred  books.  The  phenomena  of  the 
first  three  Gospels  are  next  examined  sufficiently  to  explain 
the  several  hypotheses  respecting  the  order  and  materials  of 
their  composition.  The  author  rests  on  Schleiermacher's  con- 
clusion, that  a  number  of  fragmentary  records  of  incident  and 
discourse  formed  the  groundwork,  partly  common,  partly  ex- 
clusive, of  the  triple  Evangile.  He  thus  removes  us,  in  this 
portion  of  the  Scriptures,  from  first-hand  testimony  altogether ; 
and  throws  upon  internal  criticism  the  task  of  discriminating 
between  the  original  and  reliable  elements  on  the  one  hand, 
and  those  on  the  other  which  did  not  escape  the  accidents  of 
floating  tradition  and  the  coloring  of  later  ideas.  This  deli- 
cate task  the  author  attempts  ;  and  manifests  throughout  an 
acquaintance  with  the  methods  and  models  of  the  higher 
criticism,  fully  qualifying  him  to  form  the  independent  judg- 
ment which  he  sums  up  in  these  words  :  — 

"  In  conclusion,  then,  it  appears  certain  that  in  all  the 
synoptical  Gospels  we  have  events  related  that  did  not  really 
occur,  and  words  ascribed  to  Jesus  which  Jesus  did  not  utter ; 
and  that  many  of  these  words  and  events  are  of  great  signifi- 
cance. In  the  great  majority  of  these  instances,  however, 
this  incorrectness  does  not  imply  any  want  of  honesty  on  the 
part  of  the  Evangelists,  but  merely  indicates  that  they  adopt- 
ed and  embodied,  without  much  scrutiny  or  critical  acumen, 
whatever  probable  and  honorable  narratives  they  found  cur- 
rent in  the  Christian  community." — p.  137. 

The  peculiarities  of  the  fourth  Gospel  are  next  dealt  with : 
its  apparent  polemic  reference  to  the  gnosis  of  the  first  and 
second  centuries  ;  its  absence  of  demoniacs  and  parables  ;  the 


274  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

length,  the  mysticism,  the  dogma  of  its  discourses,  and  their 
uniformity  of  complexion  with  the  historian's  own  narrative 
and  reflections ;  the  narrowness  of  its  charity,  and  the  apoc- 
ryphal appearance  of  its  "  first  miracle."  Without  question- 
ing the  probability  that  within  the  contents  of  this  Gospel  is 
secreted  a  nucleus  of  facts,  Mr.  Greg  thinks  the  book  so 
clearly  imbued  throughout  with  the  writer's  idiosyncrasy,  as 
to  be  inferior  in  historical  value  to  the  Synoptics  ;  and  the 
discourses  of  Jesus,  in  particular,  must  be  regarded  as  free 
compositions  by  the  Evangelist.  In  our  author's  management 
of  this  subject  there  seems  to  us  to  be  an  unfavorable  change. 
The  style  of  thought  peculiar  to  John,  as  well  as  that  charac- 
teristic of  Paul,  lies  out  of  the  latitude  native  to  him ;  and 
with  every  intention  to  be  just  in  his  appreciation,  he  fails,  we 
think,  to  reach  the  point  of  sympathy  from  which  the  fourth 
Gospel  should  be  judged.  The  realism  of  his  mind  makes 
him  a  better  critic  of  the  hard  Judaical  element  of  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures,  with  its  objective  distinctness  and  its  moral 
beauty,  than  of  the  more  ideal  Gentile  ingredients,  where  a 
subjective  dialectic  traces  forms  of  thought  in  the  intense  fires 
of  spiritual  consciousness. 

In  a  separate  discussion  of  the  question  of  miracles  they 
are  restored  to  the  subordinate  position,  as  compared  with 
moral  evidence,  assigned  to  them  by  the  early  Protestant 
divines.  Adopting  the  position  of  Locke,  that  "  the  miracles 
are  to  be  judged  by  the  doctrines,  and  not  the  doctrines  by 
the  miracles,"  he  can  admit  with  the  less  pain  his  conviction, 
that,  even  in  the  instance  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  the 
historical  evidence  is  too  conflicting  and  uncertain  to  bear  the 
supernatural  weight  imposed  upon  it.  He  admits,  indeed, 
that  Jesus  may  have  risen  from  the  dead  ;  the  Apostles  mani- 
festly believed  it ;  and  that  the  marked  change  in  their  char- 
acter and  conduct,  from  despair  to  triumph,  affords  the  strong- 
est evidence  of  the  sustaining  energy  of  this  belief.  But,  in 
our  ignorance  of  the  grounds  of  this  belief,  (the  Gospels  and 
book  of  Acts  containing  no  correct  or  first-hand  report  of  the 
facts,)  it  is  impossible,  he  conceives,  to  form  any  rational  estU 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  275 

mate  of  their  adequacy.  In  Mr.  Greg's  decision  on  this 
important  point,  we  see  the  effect  of  his  entrance  on  the 
problem  of  Christianity  from  the  historical  end.  If,  instead 
of  addressing  himself  first  to  the  Gospels  which  lie  most  re- 
mote from  the  source  of  the  religion,  and  represent  the  latest 
and  most  constituted  form  of  the  primitive  tradition,  he  had 
begun  with  the  earliest  remains  of  Christian  literature,  and 
traced  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  from  the  Epistles  of 
Paul  into  the  story  of  the  Evangelists,  we  think  he  would 
have  arrived  at  a  different  conclusion.  In  dismissing  the 
testimony  of  Paul  as  "  of  little  weight,"  he  throws  away  the 
main  evidence  of  the  whole  case.  We  can  understand  the 
critic  who,  having  put  the  miraculous  entirely  aside,  as  logi- 
cally inadmissible,  makes  light  of  the  Pauline  statements  on 
this  matter,  and  appeals  to  their  writer's  openness  to  impres- 
sions of  the  supernatural  in  proof  of  a  certain  vitiating  un- 
soundness  of  mind.  But  one  who,  like  our  author,  regards 
this  a  priori  incredulity  as  an  unphilosophical  prejudice,  and 
upon  whose  list  of  real  causes,  never  precluded  from  possible 
action,  supernatural  power  finds  a  place,  cannot  consistently 
condemn  another  for  believing  in  concrete  instances  what  he 
himself  allows  in  the  general ;  and  put  the  Apostle  out  of 
court,  on  the  plea  that  we  have  no  evidence  but  his  assertion 
of  his  intercourse  with  the  risen  Christ.  Is  not  his  assertion 
the  only  evidence  possible  of  a  subjective  miracle  ?  and  is 
there  any  ground  for  restricting  supernatural  agency  to  an 
objective  direction  ?  No  doubt,  facts  presented  to  external 
perception  have  the  advantage  of  being  open  to  more  wit- 
nesses than  one ;  and  if  it  be  deliberately  laid  down  as  a 
canon,  that  in  no  case  can  any  anomalous  event  be  admitted 
on  one  man's  declaration,  we  allow  the  consistency  of  refusing 
a  hearing  to  the  Apostle.  But  such  a  rule  would  only  be  an 
example  of  the  futility  of  all  attempts  to  reduce  moral  evi- 
dence to  mathematical  expression.  Facts  of  the  most  ex- 
traordinary nature  have  always  been,  and  will  always  be, 
received  on  solitary  attestation  ;  and  if  so,  it  makes  no  logical 
difference  whether  they  be  called  "  objective,"  or  "  subjective." 


276  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

A  man  has  faculties  for  apprehending  what  passes  within  him, 
as  well  as  what  passes  without ;  nor  do  we  know  any  ground 
for  trusting  the  latter  which  does  not  hold  equally  good  for 
the  former.  If  it  be  said  that  the  reporter  of  a  miracle  not 
only  announces  what  he  sees  or  feels,  —  which  we  may  accept 
on  his  veracity,  —  but  proclaims  its  supernatural  source,  — 
which  we  may  repudiate  from  distrust  of  his  judgment,  —  the 
remark  is  perfectly  just,  only  that  it  applies  alike  to  all  testi- 
mony, and  not  exclusively  to  miraculous  reports.  Our  dis- 
position to  receive  the  evidence  of  a  witness  assumed  to  be 
veracious,  depends  on  our  having  the  same  preconceptions  of 
causation  with  himself.  In  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  this 
common  ground  is  sure  to  exist,  and  therefore  remains  a  mere 
latent  condition  of  belief.  But  the  slowness  to  admit  a  mira- 
cle arises  from  the  failure  of  this  common  ground  ;  and  if  the 
hearer  reserved  in  the  background  of  his  mind,  and  in  equal 
readiness  for  action,  the  same  supernatural  power  to  which 
the  witness's  assertion  refers,  he  would  feel  no  more  tempta- 
tion to  incredulity  than  in  listening  to  some  matter  of  course. 
The  reluctance  to  believe,  is  proof  that  his  store  of  causation 
is  limited  to  the  natural  sphere ;  and  every  phenomenon  irre- 
ducible to  this  drops  away  from  all  hold  upon  his  mind.  As 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  fact  perceived  without  a  judgment 
formed,  so  is  there  no  belief  in  the  attestation  of  a  fact  with- 
out reliance  on  the  soundness  of  a  judgment ;  and  that  re- 
liance depends  on  the  hearer  having  the  same  list  of  causes 
in  his  mind  as  the  witness.  If,  then,  Mr.  Greg  holds,  with 
Paul,  that  the  power  exists  whence  a  subjective  miracle  might 
issue,  and  if  from  the  nature  of  the  case  such  miracle  must 
remain  a  matter  of  personal  consciousness,  why  reject  the 
Apostle's  report  of  his  experience  ?  In  choosing  from  among 
the  causes  which  both  parties  admit,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
Paul  alights  upon  that  which,  if  there,  gives  the  easiest  and 
most  certain  explanation ;  and  to  find  a  satisfactory  origin  for 
his  impressions  and  conduct  in  natural  agencies  is  so  difficult, 
that  critics  would  never  attempt  it,  but  to  escape  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  miracle.  On  his  own  principles  we  do  not  see 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  277 

how  our  author  could  excuse  himself  to  the  Apostle  for  reject- 
ing his  testimony ;  which  does  but  communicate,  in  the  only 
conceivable  way,  that  which  is  allowed  to  be  possible  enough, 
and  which  best  clears  up  the  mystery  of  an  astonishing  rev- 
olution in  personal  character,  and  in  the  convictions  of  an  ear- 
nest and  powerful  mind. 

The  whole  question  of  miracles,  however,  loses  its  anxious 
importance  with  those  who,  like  our  author,  would  still,  amid 
their  constant  occurrence,  look  to  other  sources  for  the  cre- 
dentials of  moral  and  religious  truth.  If  anything  is  positively 
and  incontrovertibly  known  respecting  the  Apostles,  —  and  in 
proportion  as  we  trust  the  synoptical  Gospels  must  we  allow 
Mr.  Greg  to  extend  the  remark  to  their  Master,  —  it  is  this : 
that  whatever  powers  they  exercised,  and  whatever  commu- 
nications they  received,  were  inadequate  to  preserve  them 
from  serious  error ;  and  from  delivering  to  the  world,  as  a 
substantive  part  of  their  message,  a  most  solemn  expectation 
which  was  not  to  be  fulfilled.  This  fact,  no  longer  denied  by 
any  reputable  theologian,  alone  shows  that,  even  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  highest  Christian  authority,  the  natural  criteria  of 
reason  and  conscience  cannot  be  dispensed  with.  In  the  ap- 
plication of  these  to  the  teachings  and  life  of  Christ,  our 
author  finds,  if  not  any  truths  of  supernatural  dictation,  at 
least  the  highest  object  of  veneration  and  affection  yet  given 
to  this  world. 

"  Now  on  this  subject,"  he  says,  "  we  hope  our  confession  of 
faith  will  be  acceptable  to  all  save  the  narrowly  orthodox.  It 
is  difficult,  without  exhausting  superlatives,  even  to  unexpres- 
sive  and  wearisome  satiety,  to  do  justice  to  our  intense  love, 
reverence,  and  admiration  for  the  character  and  teachings  of 
Jesus.  We  regard  him,  not  as  the  perfection  of  the  intellect- 
ual or  philosophic  mind,  but  as  the  perfection  of  the  spiritual 
character,  —  as  surpassing  all  men  of  all  times  in  the  close- 
ness and  depth  of  his  communion  with  the  Father.  In  read- 
ing his  sayings,  we  feel  that  we  are  holding  converse  with  the 
wisest,  purest,  noblest  Being  that  ever  clothed  thought  in  the 
poor  language  of  humanity.  In  studying  his  life,  we  feel 
24 


278  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

that  we  are  following  the  footsteps  of  the  highest  ideal  yet 
presented  to  us  upon  earth.  '  Blessed  be  God  that  so  much 
manliness  has  been  lived  out,  and  stands  there  yet,  a  lasting 
monument  to  mark  how  high  the  tides  of  divine  life  have  risen 
in  the  world  of  man  ! ' "  —  p.  227. 

We  differ  altogether  from  our  author  in  his  notion  of  inspi- 
ration, and  his  reduction  of  Christianity  within  the  limits  of 
human  resource.  But  we  must  say,  that  while  there  is  such 
an  estimate  as  this  of  what  Jesus  Christ  was,  it  is  a  matter  of 
subordinate  moment  what  is  thought  about  the  mode  in  which 
he  became  so. 

By  a  process  of  "  Christian  Eclecticism,"  Mr.  Greg  draws 
forth  from  the  Gospels  the  elements  which  he  regards  as 
characteristic  of  the  religion  of  Jesus ;  distinguishing  those 
which  make  it  the  purest  of  faiths  from  others  which  appear 
to  him  irreconcilable  with  a  just  philosophy.  The  doctrine 
of  a  future  life  is  reserved  for  a  separate  discussion ;  the  gen- 
eral result  of  which  we  know  not  how  to  describe,  otherwise 
than  by  saying  that  the  author  discards  all  the  evidence  and 
yet  retains  the  conclusion.  All  the  arguments,  metaphysical 
and  moral,  for  human  immortality,  he  condemns  as  absolutely 
worthless  ;  he  confesses  that  he  has  no  new  ones  to  propose ; 
he  affirms  that  all  appearances,  without  exception,  proclaim 
the  permanence  of  death,  the  absence  of  any  spiritual  essence 
in  man,  and  the  absolute  sway  of  the  laws  of  organization ; 
yet,  on  the  report  of  that  very  "  soul "  within  him,  whose  ex- 
istence nature  disowns,  he  holds  the  doctrine  of  a  future  ex- 
istence by  the  irresistible  tenure  of  a  first  truth.  We  do  not 
wonder  that  the  rigor  with  which  Mr.  Greg  has  pushed  his 
principles  through  other  subjects  of  thought  should  relent  at 
this  point,  and  refuse  to  cast  the  sublimest  of  human  hopes 
over  the  brink  of  darkness.  We  respect,  as  a  holy  abstinence, 
his  refusal  to  silence  the  pleadings  of  the  inner  voice.  But 
we  admire  his  faith  more  than  his  philosophy  ;  and  are  aston- 
ished that  he  does  not  suspect  the  soundness  of  a  scientific 
method  which  lands  him  in  results  he  cannot  hold.  No  scep- 
ticism is  so  fatal,  —  for  none  has  so  wide  a  sweep,  —  as  that 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  279 

which  despairs  of  the  self-reconciliation  of  human  nature ; 
which  flings  among  our  faculties  the  reproach  of  irretrievable 
contradiction ;  which  sets  up  first  truths  against  deductions, 
conscience  against  science,  faith  against  logic.  Ever  since 
Kant  balanced  his  Antinomies,  and  employed  the  gravitation 
of  Practical  reason  to  turn  the  irresolute  scales  of  the  Specu- 
lative, this  unwholesome  practice  has  been  spreading,  of  assum- 
ing an  ultimate  discordance  between  co-existing  powers  of 
the  mind.  In  the  language  of  rhetoric  or  poetry,  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  popular  notions  on  morals  and  religion,  it  would  be 
hypercritical  to  complain  of  the  antitheses  of  understanding 
and  feeling,  —  sense  and  soul.  But  to  an  exact  thinker  it 
must  be  apparent  that  an  ambidextrous  intellect  is  no  intel- 
lect at  all ;  and  that,  were  this  all  our  endowment,  the  life  of 
the  wisest  would  be  but  a  chase  after  mocking  shadows  of 
thought.  The  following  words  of  our  author,  with  all  their 
tranquil  appearance,  describe  a  state  of  things  which,  were  it 
real,  might  well  strike  us  with  dismay :  — 

"  There  are  three  points  especially  of  religious  belief,  re- 
garding which  intuition  (or  instinct)  and  logic  are  at  variance, 
—  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  man's  free-will,  and  a  future  exist- 
ence. If  believed,  they  must  be  believed,  the  last  without 
the  countenance,  the  two  former  in  spite  of  the  hostility  of 
logic."  — p.  303. 

This  is  absolute  Pyrrhonism,  and  though  said  in  the  interest 
of  religion,  is  subversive  alike  of  knowledge  and  of  faith. 
The  pretended  "  logic "  can  be  good  for  very  little,  which 
comes  out  with  so  suicidal  an  achievement  as  the  disproof  of 
Jtrst  truths.  The  condition  under  which  alone  logic  can  exist 
as  a  science  is  the  unity  in  the  human  mind  of  the  laws  of 
belief,  —  a  condition  which  would  be  violated  if  any  first 
truth  contradicted  another  in  itself,  or  in  its  deductions.  The 
moment,  therefore,  such  a  contradiction  turns  up,  a  consistent 
thinker  will  either  regard  it  as  a  mere  semblance,  and  proceed 
to  re-examine  his  premises,  and  test  his  reasoning ;  or  he  will 
treat  it  as  real ;  and  then  it  throws  contempt  on  logic  altogeth- 
er, and  relegates  it  into  impossibility.  In  neither  case  can  his 


280  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

reliance  incline  to  the  logical  side.  Mr.  Greg,  however,  sticks 
to  his  logic  whenever,  as  in  the  two  cases  mentioned  in  the 
foregoing  extract,  it  loudly  negatives  a  point  of  religious  belief; 
and  abandons  it  only  where  it  restricts  itself  to  cold  and  dumb 
discouragement.  A  bolder  distrust  of  his  logic,  and  a  firmer 
faith  in  the  logic  of  nature,  would  perhaps  have  harmonized 
the  differing  voices  of  the  intellect  and  the  soul,  blending  them 
in  a  faith  neither  afraid  to  think  nor  ashamed  to  pray. 

Had  our  author  been  as  familiar  with  the  Catholic  and  Ar- 
minian  divines,  as  with  the  literature  of  inductive  science  and 
Calvinistic  theology,  he  would  have  known  that  there  is  a  phi- 
losophy from  which  the  religious  intuitions  encounter  no  re- 
pugnance ;  and  would,  at  least,  have  noticed  its  offer  of  medi- 
ation between  Faith  and  Reason.  He  is,  however,  entirely 
shut  up  within  the  formulas  of  a  different  school,  which  pi-ess 
with  their  resistance  on  his  religious  feeling  in  every  direction, 
and  produce  a  conflict  which  he  can  neither  appease  nor  ter- 
minate. With  an  intellect  entirely  overridden  by  the  ideas  of 
Law  and  Necessity,  no  man  can  escape  the  force  of  the  com- 
mon objections  to  any  doctrine  of  prayer,  or  of  forgiveness  of 
sin;  and  if  those  ideas  possess  universal  validity,  the  very 
discussion  of  such  doctrines  is,  in  the  last  degree,  idle  and 
absurd.  But  what  if  some  mediaeval  schoolman,  or  some  im- 
pugner  of  the  Baconian  orthodoxy,  were  to  suggest  that, 
though  Law  is  coextensive  with  outward  nature,  Nature  is 
not  coextensive  with  God,  and  that  beyond  the  range  where 
his  agency  is  bound  by  the  pledge  of  predetermined  rules  lies 
an  infinite  margin,  where  his  spirit  is  free  ?  And  what  if,  in 
aggravation  of  his  heresy,  he  were  to  contend  that  Man  also, 
as  counterpart  of  God,  belongs  not  wholly  to  the  realm  of 
nature,  but  transcends  it  by  a  certain  endowment  of  free 
power  in  his  spirit  ?  Having  made  these  assumptions,  on  the 
ground  that  they  were  more  agreeable  to  "  intuitive  "  feeling, 
and  not  less  so  to  external  evidence,  than  the  one-sidedness 
of  their  opposites,  might  he  not  suggest  that  room  is  now 
found  for  a  doctrine  of  prayer?  Not  that  any  event  bespoken 
and  planted  in  the  sphere  of  nature  can  be  turned  aside  by 


THE    CREED    OP    CHRISTENDOM.  281 

the  urgency  of  desire  and  devotion ;  not  that  the  slightest 
swerving  is  to  be  expected  from  the  usages  of  creation,  or  of 
the  mind  ;  wherever  law  is  established  —  without  us  or  with- 
in us  —  there  let  it  be  absolute  as  the  everlasting  faithfulness. 
But  God  has  not  spent  himself  wholly  in  the  courses  of  cus- 
tom, and  mortgaged  his  infinite  resources  to  nature ;  nor  has 
he  closed  up  with  rules  every  avenue  through  which  his  fresh 
energy  might  find  entrance  into  life  ;  but  has  left  in  the  hu- 
man soul  a  theatre  whose  scenery  is  not  all  pre-arranged,  and 
whose  drama  is  ever  open  to  new  developments.  Between 
the  free  centre  of  the  soul  in  man,  and  the  free  margin  of  the 
activity  of  God,  what  hinders  the  existence  of  a  real  and 
living  communion,  the  interchange  of  look  and  answer,  of 
thought  and  counterthought  ?  If,  in  response  to  human  aspi- 
ration, a  higher  mood  is  infused  into  the  mind ;  if,  in  consola- 
tion of  penitence  or  sorrow,  a  gleam  of  gentle  hope  steals  in ; 
and  if  these  should  be  themselves  the  vivifying  touch  of  di- 
vine sympathy  and  pity,  what  law  is  prejudiced  ?  what  faith 
is  broken  ?  what  province  of  nature  has  any  title  to  complain  ? 
And  so,  too,  (might  our  mediaeval  friend  continue,)  with  re- 
spect to  the  doctrine  of  forgiveness.  If  men  are  under  moral 
obligation,  and  God  is  a  being  of  moral  perfection,  he  must 
regard  their  unfaithfulness  with  disapproval.  Of  his  senti- 
ments, the  clear  trace  will  be  found  in  the  various  sufferings 
which  constitute  the  natural  punishment  of  wrong.  These 
are  incorporated  in  the  very  structure  of  the  world  and  the 
constitution  of  life ;  and  to  persistence  in  their  infliction,  the 
Supreme  Ruler  is  committed  by  the  assurance  of  his  constan- 
cy. They  fasten  on  the  guilty  a  chain  which  no  pardon  will 
strike  off,  but  which  he  will  drag  till  it  is  worn  away.  Not 
all  the  divine  sentiment,  however,  is  embodied  in  the  physical 
consequences.  Besides  this  determinate  expression  of  his 
thought,  written  out  on  the  finite  world,  there  is  an  unex- 
pressed element  remaining  behind,  in  his  infinite  nature :  on 
the  visible  side  of  the  veil  is  the  suggestive  manifestation ;  on 
the  invisible,  is  the  very  affection  manifested.  There  is  a 
personal  alienation,  a  forfeiture  of  approach  and  sympathy, 
24* 


282  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

which  would  survive  though  creation  were  to  perish  and  carry 
its  punishments  away ;  and  would  still  cast  its  black  shadow 
into  empty  space.  This  reserved  sentiment,  and  this  alone,  is 
affected  by  repentance.  But  it  is  no  small  thing  for  the  heart 
of  shame  to  know  this.  The  estrangement  lasts  no  longer 
than  the  guilty  temper  and  the  unsoftened  conscience  ;  and 
when,  through  its  sorrow,  the  mind  is  clear  and  pure,  the 
sunshine  of  divine  affection  will  burst  it  again.  In  this  the 
free  Spirit  of  God  is  different  from  his  bound  action  in  nature. 
Long  after  he  himself  has  forgiven  and  embraced  again,  ne- 
cessity— the  creature  of  his  legislation  —  will  continue  to 
wield  the  lash,  and  measure  out  with  no  relenting  the  remain- 
der of  the  penalty  incurred ;  and  he  that  yet  drags  his  burden 
and  visibly  limps  upon  his  sin,  may  all  the  while  have  a  heart 
at  rest  with  God.  And  thus  is  retribution  —  the  reaping  as 
we  have  sown  —  in  no  contradiction  with  forgiveness,  —  the 
personal  restoration. 

How  far  such  modes  of  thought  as  these  would  help  to  rec- 
oncile the  conflicting  claims,  —  and  how  they  would  stand  re- 
lated to  Mr.  Greg's  terrible  friend,  "  Logic,"  we  do  not  pre- 
tend to  decide.  We  refer  to  them  only  as  possible  means  of 
escaping  —  at  least  of  postponing  —  his  desolating  doctrine, 
that  intuitions  may  tell  lies;  and  in  support  of  our  state- 
ment, that  his  theoretic  view  lies  entirely  within  the  circle  of 
a  particular  school,  —  a  school,  morever,  so  little  able  to  satis- 
fy his  aspirations,  that  he  is  obliged  to  patch  up  a  compromise 
between  his  nature  and  his  culture.  The  curious  amalgama- 
tion which  has  taken  place  in  England,  of  the  metaphysics  of 
Calvin  with  the  physics  of  Bacon,  has  produced,  in  a  large 
class,  a  philosophical  tendency,  with  which  the  distinctive  sen- 
timents of  Christianity  very  uneasily  combine.  The  effacing 
of  all  lines  separating  the  natural  and  moral,  the  limitation 
of  God  to  the  realm  of  nature,  and  the  subjugation  of  all 
things  to  predestination,  are  among  the  chief  features  of  this 
tendency,  and  the  chief  obstacles  to  any  concurrence  between 
the  intellectual  and  the  spiritual  religion  of  the  age. 

If  some  of  the  elements  in  the  early  Christianity  are  too 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  283 

hastily  cancelled  by  our  author,  there  is  one  sentiment  whose 
inapplicability  to  the  present  day  he  exposes  with  an  irresisti- 
ble force  ;  —  that  depreciating  estimate  of  life  which,  however 
natural  to  Apostles  "  impressed  with  the  conviction  that  the 
world  was  falling  to  pieces,"  is  wholly  misplaced  among  those 
for  whose  office  and  work  this  earthly  scene  is  the  appointed 
place.  The  exhortations  of  the  Apostles, "  granting  the  prem- 
ises, were  natural  and  wise." 

"  But  for  divines  in  this  day  —  when  the  profession  of 
Christianity  is  attended  with  no  peril,  when  its  practice,  even, 
demands  no  sacrifice,  save  that  preference  of  duty  to  enjoy- 
ment which  is  the  first  law  of  cultivated  humanity  —  to  re- 
peat the  language,  profess  the  feelings,  inculcate  the  notions, 
of  men  who  lived  in  daily  dread  of  such  awful  martyrdom, 
and  under  the  excitement  of  such  a  mighty  misconception ;  to 
cry  down  the  world,  with  its  profound  beauty,  its  thrilling  in- 
terests, its  glorious  works,  its  noble  and  holy  affections ;  to  ex- 
hort their  hearers,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  to  detach  their  heart 
from  the  earthly  life,  as  inane,  fleeting,  and  unworthy,  and  fix 
it  upon  heaven,  as  the  only  sphere  deserving  the  love  of  the 
loving  or  the  meditation  of  the  wise,  —  appears  to  us,  we 
confess,  frightful  insincerity,  the  enactment  of  a  wicked  and 
gigantic  lie.  The  exhortation  is  delivered  and  listened  to  as  a 
thing  of  course ;  and  an  hour  afterwards  the  preacher,  who 
has  thus  usurped  and  profaned  the  language  of  an  Apostle 
who  wrote  with  the  fagot  and  the  cross  full  in  view,  is  sitting 
comfortably  with  his  hearer  over  his  claret ;  they  are  fondling 
their  children,  discussing  public  affairs  or  private  plans  in 
life,  with  passionate  interest,  and  yet  can  look  at  each  other 
without  a  smile  or  a  blush  for  the  sad  and  meaningless  farce 

they  have   been   acting ! Everything  tends  to   prove 

that  this  life  is,  not  perhaps,  not  probably,  our  only  sphere, 
but  still  an  integral  one,  and  the  one  with  which  we  are 
here  meant  to  be  concerned.  The  present  is  our  scene  of 
action,  —  the  future  is  for  speculation  and  for  trust.  We 
firmly  believe  that  man  was  sent  upon  the  earth  to  live  in  it, 
to  enjoy  it,  to  study  it,  to  love  it,  to  embellish  it,  —  to  make 


284  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

the  most  of  it,  in  short.  It  is  his  country,  on  which  he  should 
lavish  his  affections  and  his  efforts.  Spartam  nactus  es  — 
hanc  exorna.  It  should  be  to  him  a  house,  not  a  tent,  —  a 
home,  not  only  a  school.  If,  when  this  house  and  this  home 
are  taken  from  him,  Providence,  in  its  wisdom  and  its  bounty, 
provides  him  with  another,  let  him  be  deeply  grateful  for  the 
gift,  —  let  him  transfer  to  that  future,  when  it  has  become  his 
present,  his  exertions,  his  researches,  and  his  love.  But  let 
him  rest  assured  that  he  is  sent  into  this  world,  not  to  be  con- 
stantly hankering  after,  dreaming  of,  preparing  for,  another, 
which  may  or  may  not  be  in  store  for  him,  but  to  do  his 
duty  and  fulfil  his  destiny  on  earth,  —  to  do  all  that  lies  in  his 
power  to  improve  it,  to  render  it  a  scene  of  elevated  happiness 
to  himself,  to  those  around  him,  to  those  who  are  to  come 
after  him.  So  will  he  avoid  those  tormenting  contests  with 
nature,  —  those  struggles  to  suppress  affections  which  God 
has  implanted,  sanctioned,  and  endowed  with  irresistible  su- 
premacy, —  those  agonies  of  remorse  when  he  finds  that  God 
is  too  strong  for  him,  —  which  now  embitter  the  lives  of  so 
many  earnest  and  sincere  souls ;  so  will  he  best  prepare  for 
that  future  which  we  hope  for,  if  it  come ;  so  will  he  best 
have  occupied  the  present,  if  the  present  be  his  all.  To  de- 
mand that  we  love  heaven  more  than  earth,  that  the  unseen 
should  hold  a  higher  place  in  our  affections  than  the  seen  and 
familiar,  is  to  ask  that  which  cannot  be  obtained  without  sub- 
duing nature,  and  inducing  a  morbid  condition  of  the  soul. 
The  very  law  of  our  being  is  love  of  life,  and  all  its  interests 
and  adornments."  —  pp.  271,  272. 

With  all  that  is  admirable  in  our  author's  book,  he  contem- 
plates the  whole  subject  from  a  point  of  view  which  exhibits 
it  in  very  imperfect  lights.  He  professes  to  treat  of  "  The 
Creed  of  Christendom."  Yet,  in  examining  only  the  canoni- 
cal Scriptures  and  the  primitive  belief,  he  totally  ignores  the 
"  Creed  "  of  the  greater  part  of  "  Christendom,"  namely,  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  For  it  is  only  Protestants  that  identify 
Christianity  with  the  letter  of  the  New  Testament,  and  settle 
everything  by  appeal  to  its  contents.  According  to  the  older 


THE    CEEED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  285 

doctrine,  Christianity  is  not  a  Divine  Philosophy  recorded  in 
certain  books,  but  a  Divine  Institution  committed  to  certain 
men.  The  Christian  Scriptures  are  not  its  source,  but  its 
first  product ;  not  its  charter  and  definition,  but  its  earliest  act 
and  the  expression  of  its  incipient  thought  They  exhibit  the 
young  attempts  of  the  new  agency,  as  it  was  getting  to  work 
upon  the  minds  of  men  and  trying  to  penetrate  the  resisting 
mass  of  terrestrial  affairs.  They  are  thus  but  the  beginning 
of  a  record  which  is  prolonged  through  all  subsequent  times, 
the  opening  page  in  the  proceedings  of  a  Church  in  perpetu- 
ity ;  and  are  not  separated  from  the  continuous  sacred  litera- 
ture of  Christendom,  as  insulated  fragments  of  Divine  author- 
ity. The  supernatural  element  which  they  contain  did  not  die 
out  with  their  generation,  but  has  never  ceased  to  flow  through 
succeeding  centuries.  Nor  did  the  heavenly  purpose  —  precip- 
itated upon  earthly  materials  and  media  —  disclose  itself  most 
conspicuously  at  first ;  but  rather  cleared  itself  as  it  advanced 
and  enriched  its  energy  with  better  instruments.  The  sub- 
limest  things  would  even  lie  secreted  in  the  unconscious  heart 
of  the  new  influence,  and  only  with  the  slowness  of  noble 
growths  push  towards  the  light ;  for  the  noise  and  obtrusive- 
ness  of  the  human  is  ever  apt  to  overwhelm  the  retiring  si- 
lence of  the  divine.  The  disciples,  who,  when  events  were 
before  their  eyes,  and  great  words  fell  upon  their  ears,  "  un- 
derstood not  these  things  at  the  time,"  are  types  of  all  men 
and  all  ages ;  whose  religion,  coming  out  in  the  event,  is 
known  to  others  better  than  to  themselves.  A  faith,  there- 
fore, should  be  judged  less  by  its  first  form  than  by  its  last ; 
and  at  all  events  be  studied,  not  as  it  once  appeared,  but  in 
the  entire  retrospect  of  its  existence. 

No  doubt  this  doctrine  of  development  is  made  subservi- 
ent, in  the  Romish  system,  to  monstrous  sacerdotal  claims.  A 
priestly  hierarchy  pretends  to  the  exclusive  custody,  and  the 
gradual  unfolding,  of  God's  sacred  gift.  But  sweep  away  this 
holy  corporation ;  throw  its  treasury  open,  and  let  its  vested 
right,  of  paying  out  the  truth,  be  flung  into  the  free  air  of 
history ;  gather  together  no  Sacred  College  but  the  collected 


286  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

ages ;  appeal  to  no  high  Pontiff  but  the  Providence  of  God ;  — 
and  there  remains  a  far  juster  and  sublimer  view  of  the  place 
and  function  of  a  pure  Gospel  in  the  world,  than  the  narrow 
Protestant  conception.  Christianity  becomes  thus,  not  the 
Creed  of  its  Founders,  but  the  Religion  of  Christendom,  to 
be  estimated  only  in  comparison  with  the  faiths  of  other 
groups  of  the  great  human  family ;  and  the  superhuman  in  it 
will  consist  in  this,  —  the  providential  introduction  among  the 
affairs  of  this  world  of  a  divine  influence,  which  shall  gradu- 
ally reach  to  untried  depths  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  become 
the  organizing  centre  of  a  new  moral  and  spiritual  life.  It  is 
a  power  appointed  —  an  inspiration  given  —  to  fetch  by  rever- 
ence a  true  religion  out  of  man,  and  not,  by  dictation,  to  put 
one  into  him. 

For  this  end,  it  would  not  even  be  necessary  that  the  beai- 
ers  of  the  divine  element  should  be  personally  initiated  into 
the  counsels  whose  ministers  they  are.  Philosophy  must 
know  what  it  teaches  ;  but  Inspiration,  in  giving  the  intensest 
light  to  others,  may  have  a  dark  side  turned  towards  itself. 
There  is  no  irreverence  in  saying  this,  and  no  novelty :  on  the 
contrary,  the  idea  has  ever  been  familiar  to  the  most  fervent 
men  and  ages,  of  Prophets  who  prepared  a  future  veiled  from 
their  own  eyes,  and  saintly  servants  of  heaven,  who  drew  to 
themselves  a  trust,  and  wielded  a  power,  which  their  ever- 
upward  look  never  permitted  them  to  guess.  Nay,  to  no  one 
was  this  conception  less  strange,  than  to  the  very  man  who, 
in  his  turn,  must  now  have  it  applied  to  himself.  With  the 
Apostle  Paul  it  was  a  favorite  notion,  that  the  entire  plan  of 
the  Divine  government  had  been  a  profound  secret  during  the 
ages  of  its  progress,  and  was  opening  into  clear  view  only  at 
the  hour  of  its  catastrophe.  Not  only  was  there  more  in  it 
than  had  been  surmised,  but  something  utterly  at  variance 
with  all  expectation.  Its  whole  conception  had  remained  un- 
suspected from  first  to  last ;  undiscerned  by  the  vision  of 
seers,  and  unapproached  by  the  guesses  of  the  wise.  Never 
absent  from  the  mind  of  God,  and  never  pausing  in  its  course 
of  execution,  it  had  yet  evaded  the  notice  of  all  observers ; 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  287 

and  winding  its  way  through  the  throng  of  nations  and  the 
labyrinth  of  centuries,  the  great  Thought  had  passed  in  dis- 
guise, using  all  men  and  known  of  none.  Nor  was  it  only 
the  pagan  eye  that,  for  want  of  special  revelation,  had  been 
detained  in  darkness,  or  beguiled  with  the  scenery  of  dreams. 
The  very  people  whose  life  was  the  main  channel  of  the 
Divine  purpose  did  not  feel  the  tide  of  tendency  which  they 
conveyed ;  the  patriarchs  who  fed  their  flocks  near  its  foun- 
tains, the  lawgiver  who  founded  a  state  upon  its  banks,  the 
priests  whose  temple  poured  blood  into  its  watei*s,  and  the 
prophets  at  whose  prayer  the  clouds  of  heaven  dropped  fresh 
purity  into  the  stream,  —  all  were  unconscious  of  its  course  ; 
assigning  it  to  regions  it  should  never  visit,  and  missing  the 
point  where  it  should  be  lost  in  the  sea.  Nay,  Paul  seems  to 
bring  down  this  edge  of  darkness  to  a  later  time ;  to  include 
within  it  even  the  ministry  of  Christ  and  the  Galilean  Apos- 
tles ;  to  imply  that  even  they  were  unconscious  instruments 
of  a  scheme  beyond  the  range  of  their  immediate  thought ; 
and  that  not  till  Jesus  had  passed  into  the  light  of  heaven 
did  the  time  come  for  revealing,  through  the  man  of  Tarsus, 
the  significance  of  Messiah's  earthly  visit,  and  its  place  in  the 
great  scheme  of  things.  Paul,  in  claiming  this  as  his  own 
special  function,  certainly  implies  that,  previous  to  his  call,  no 
one  was  in  condition  to  interpret  the  secret  counsels  of  God 
in  the  historic  development  of  his  providence.  He  feels  this 
to  be  no  reflection  on  his  predecessors,  no  cause  of  elevation 
in  himself;  steward  as  he  is  of  a  mighty  mystery,  he  is  less 
than  the  least  of  all  saints.  He  simply  stands  at  the  crisis 
when  a  conception  is  permitted  to  the  world,  which  even  "  the 
angels  have  vainly  desired  to  look  into  " ;  and  though  he  may 
see  more,  he  is  infinitely  less  than  the  Prophets  and  the  Mes- 
siah whose  place  it  is  given  him  to  explain.  He  is  but  the 
interpreter,  they  are  the  grand  agencies  interpreted.  He  is 
but  the  discerning  eye,  they  are  the  glorious  objects  on  which 
it  is  fixed. 

In  seeking,  therefore,  for  the  divine  element  in  older  dis- 
pensations, the  Apostle  would  assuredly  not  consult  the  pro- 


288  THE    CREED    OF   CHRISTENDOM. 

jects  and  beliefs  of  their  founders  and  ministers.  In  his  view, 
the  very  scheme  of  God  was  to  work  through  these  without 
their  knowing  what  they  were  about ;  to  let  them  aim  at  one 
thing  while  he  was  directing  them  to  another ;  to  pour  through 
their  life  and  soul  an  energy  which  should  indeed  fire  their 
will  and  flow  from  their  lips  in  their  own  best  purposes,  but 
steal  quietly  behind  them  for  his  ;  so  that  what  was  primary 
with  them  was  perhaps  evanescent  with  him ;  while  that 
which  was  incidental,  and  dropped  from  them  unawares,  was 
the  seed  of  an  eternal  good.  What  Moses  planned,  what 
David  sung,  what  Isaiah  led  the  people  to  expect,  was  not 
what  Heaven  had  at  heart  to  execute.  Even  in  quest  of 
God's  thought  in  the  Christian  dispensation,  Paul  does  not 
refer  to  the  doctrines,  the  precepts,  the  miracles  of  Jesus 
during  his  ministry  in  Palestine,  —  to  the  memorials  of  his  life, 
or  the  testimony  of  his  companions.  He  assumes  that,  at  so 
early  a  date,  the  time  had  not  yet  come  for  the  truth  to 
appear,  and  that  it  was  vain  to  look  for  it  in  the  preconcep- 
tions of  the  uncrucified  and  unexalted  Christ ;  who  was  the 
religion,  not  in  revelation,  but  in  disguise.  If,  therefore,  any 
one  had  argued  against  the  Apostle  thus :  "  Why  tell  us  to 
discard  the  law  ?  your  Master  said  he  came  to  fulfil  it.  How 
do  you  venture  to  preach  to  the  Gentiles,  when  Jesus  de- 
clared his  mission  limited  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of 
Israel?  No  vestiges  of  your  doctrine  of  free  grace  can  be 
found  in  the  parables,  or  of  redeeming  faith  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount " ;  —  he  would  have  boldly  replied,  that  this  proves 
nothing  against  truths  that  are  newer  than  the  life,  because 
expounded  by  the  death,  of  Christ;  that  God  reveals  by 
action,  not  by  teaching ;  that  no  servant  of  his  can  understand 
his  own  office  till  it  is  past ;  and  that  only  those  who  look 
back  upon  it  through  the  interpretation  of  events,  can  read 
aright  the  divine  idea  which  it  enfolds. 

This  view  it  was  that  made  the  Apostle  so  bold  an  inno- 
vator, and  filled  his  Epistles  with  a  system  so  different  from 
that  of  the  synoptical  Gospels  as  almost  to  constitute  a  differ- 
ent religion.  He  had  seized  the  profound  and  sublime  idea 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  289 

that,  when  men  are  inspired,  the  inspiration  occupies,  not  their 
conscious  thought  and  will,  but  their  unconscious  nature ; 
laying  a  silent  beauty  on  their  affections,  secreting  a  holy 
wisdom  in  their  life,  and,  through  the  sorrows  of  faithfulness, 
tempting  their  steps  to  some  surprise  of  glory.  That  which 
they  deliberately  think,  that  which  they  anxiously  elaborate, 
that  which  they  propose  to  do,  is  ever  the  product  of  their 
human  reason  and  volition,  and  cannot  escape  the  admixture 
of  personal  fallibility.  But  their  free  spontaneous  nature 
speaks  unawares,  like  a  sweet  murmuring  from  angels'  dreams. 
What  they  think  without  knowing  it,  what  they  say  without 
thinking  it,  what  they  do  without  saying  it,  all  the  native 
pressures  of  their  love  and  aspiration,  these  are  the  hiding- 
place  of  God,  wherein  abiding,  he  leaves  their  simplicity  pure 
and  their  liberty  untouched.  The  current  of  their  reasoning 
and  action  is  determined  by  human  conditions  and  material 
resistances ;  but  the  fountain  in  the  living  rock  has  waters  that 
are  divine.  If  this  be  true,  then  must  we  search  for  the 
heavenly  element  in  the  latencies  rather  than  the  prominen- 
cies of  their  life ;  in  what  they  were,  rather  than  in  what  they 
thought  to  do  ;  in  the  beliefs  they  felt  without  announcing ;  in 
the  objects  they  accomplished,  but  never  planned.  We  must 
wait  for  their  agency  in  history,  and  from  the  fruit  return  to 
find  the  seed. 

It  is  not  peculiar  to  Mr.  Greg  that,  in  estimating  Christian- 
ity, he  has  neglected,  and  even  reversed,  this  principle.  All 
who  have  treated  of  it  from  the  Protestant  point  of  view  have 
done  the  same.  They  have  assumed  that  the  religion  was  to 
be  most  clearly  discerned  at  its  commencement ;  that  the  di- 
vine thought  it  contained  would  be,  not  evolved,  but  obscured 
by  time,  and  might  be  better  detected  in  ideal  shape  at  the 
beginning  of  the  ages,  than  realized  at  the  end ;  that  its  agents 
and  inaugurators  must  have  been  fully  cognizant  of  its  whole 
scope  and  contents,  and  set  them  in  the  open  ground  of  their 
speech  and  practical  career.  In  the  minds  of  all  Protestants 
the  Christian  religion  is  identified  exclusively  with  the  ideas 
of  the  first  century,  with  the  creed  of  the  Apostles,  with  the 
25 


290  THE    CEEED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

teachings  of  Christ.  The  New  Testament  is  its  sole  deposi- 
tory, in  whose  books  there  is  nothing  for  which  it  is  not 
answerable.  The  consequence  is  a  perpetual  struggle  be- 
tween untenable  dogma  and  unprofitable  scepticism.  The 
whole  structure  of  faith  becomes  precarious.  If  Luke  and 
Matthew  should  disagree  about  a  date  or  a  pedigree  ;  if  Mark 
should  report  a  questionable  miracle ;  if  John  should  mingle 
with  his  tenderness  and  depth  some  words  of  passionate  in- 
tolerance ;  if  Peter  should  misapply  a  psalm,  and  Paul  indite 
mistaken  prophecies;  above  all,  if  Jesus  should  appear  to 
believe  in  demonology,  and  not  to  have  foreseen  the  futurities 
of  his  Church,  —  these  detected  specks  are  felt  like  a  total 
eclipse ;  affrighted  faith  hides  its  face  from  them  and  shrieks  ; 
and  he  who  points  them  out,  though  only  to  show  how  pure 
the  orb  that  spreads  behind,  is  denounced  as  a  prophet  of  evil. 
The  peaceful  and  holy  centre  of  religion  is  shaken  by  storms 
of  angry  erudition.  Devout  ingenuity  or  indevout  acuteness 
spend  themselves  in  vitiating  the  impartial  course  of  histori- 
cal criticism;  neither  of  them  reflecting,  that,  if  the  topics  in 
dispute  are  open  to  reasonable  doubt,  they  cannot  be  matter 
of  revelation,  and  may  be  calmly  looked  at  as  objects  of  natu- 
ral thought.  It  is  a  thing  alike  dangerous  and  unbecoming 
that  religion  should  be  narrowed  to  a  miserable  literary  parti- 
sanship, bound  up  with  a  disputed  set  of  critical  conclusions, 
unable  to  deliver  its  title-deeds  from  a  court  of  perpetual 
chancery,  whose  decisions  are  never  final.  The  time  seems 
to  have  arrived  for  freeing  the  Protestant  Christianity  from 
its  superstitious  adhesion  to  the  mere  letter  of  the  Gospel,  and 
trusting  more  generously  to  that  permanent  inspiration,  those 
ever-living  sources  of  truth  within  the  soul,  of  which  Gospel 
and  Epistle,  the  speeches  of  Apostles  and  the  insight  of  Christ, 
are  the  pre-eminent,  rather  than  the  lonely,  examples.  The 
primitive  Gospel  is  not  in  its  form,  but  only  in  its  spirit,  the 
everlasting  Gospel.  It  is  concerned,  and,  if  we  look  to  quan- 
tity alone,  chiefly  concerned,  with  questions  that  have  ceased 
to  exist,  and  interests  that  no  longer  agitate.  It  often  reasons 
from  principles  we  do  not  own,  and  is  tinged  with  feelings 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  291 

which  we  cannot  share.  Often  do  the  most  docile  and  open 
hearts  resort  to  it  with  reverent  hopes  which  it  does  not 
realize,  and  close  it  with  a  sigh  of  self-reproach  or  disap- 
pointment. With  the  deep  secrets  of  the  conscience,  the 
sublime  hopes,  the  tender  fears,  the  infinite  wonderings  of  the 
religious  life,  it  deals  less  altogether  than  had  been  desired ; 
and  in  touching  them  does  not  always  glorify  and  satisfy  the 
heart.  We  are  apt  to  long  for  some  nearer  reflection,  some 
more  immediate  help,  of  our  existence  in  this  present  hour 
and  this  English  land,  where  our  enemies  are  not  Pharisees 
and  Sadducees,  or  our  controversies  about  Beelzebub  and  his 
demons ;  but  where  we  would  fain  know  how  to  train  our 
children,  to  subdue  our  sins,  to  ennoble  our  lot,  to  think  truly 
of  our  dead.  The  merchant,  the  scholar,  the  statesman,  the 
heads  of  a  family,  the  owner  of  an  estate,  occupy  a  moral 
sphere,  the  problems  and  anxieties  of  which,  it  must  be  owned, 
Evangelists  and  Apostles  do  not  approach.  Scarcely  can  it 
be  said  that  general  rules  are  given,  which  include  these  par- 
ticular cases.  For  the  Christian  Scriptures  are  singularly 
sparing  of  general  rules.  They  are  eminently  personal,  na- 
tional, local.  They  tell  us  of  Martha  and  Mary,  of  Nicode- 
mus  and  Nathaniel,  but  give  few  maxims  of  human  nature,  or 
large  formulas  of  human  life :  so  that  their  spiritual  guidance 
first  becomes  available  when  its  essence  has  been  translated 
from  the  special  to  the  universal,  and  again  brought  down 
from  the  universal  to  the  modern  application.  They  are  felt 
to  be  an  inadequate  measure  of  our  living  Christianity,  and  to 
leave  untouched  many  earnest  thoughts  that  aspire  and  pray 
within  the  mind.  One  divine  gift,  indeed,  they  impart  to  us, 
—  the  gracious  and  holy  image  of  Christ  himself.  Yet,  some- 
how, even  that  sacred  form  appears  with  more  disencumbered 
beauty,  and  in  clearer  light,  when  regarded  at  a  little  distance 
in  the  pure  spaces  of  our  thought,  than  when  seen  close  at 
hand  on  the  historic  canvas.  It  is  not  that  the  ideal  figure  is 
a  subjective  fiction  of  our  own,  more  perfect  than  the  real. 
Every  lineament,  every  gesture,  all  the  simple  majesty,  all 
the  deep  expressiveness,  we  conceive  to  be  justified  and  de- 


292  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

manded  by  the  actual  portraiture  :  our  least  hesitating  venera- 
tion sees  nothing  that  is  not  there.  But  the  original  artists' 
sympathy  we  feel  to  have  been  somewhat  different  from  ours. 
They  have  labored  to  exhibit  aspects  that  move  us  little ;  and 
only  faintly  marked  the  traces  that  to  us  are  most  divine. 
The  view  is  often  broken,  the  official  dress  turned  into  a  dis- 
guise. The  local  groups  are  in  the  way  ;  the  possessed  and 
the  perverse  obtrude  themselves  in  front  with  too  much  noise ; 
and  the  refracting  cloud  of  prophecy  and  tradition  is  con- 
tinually thrown  between.  So  that  the  image  has  a  distmcter 
glory  to  the  meditating  mind  than  to  the  reading  eye. 

All  this,  oftener  perhaps  felt  than  confessed,  is  perfectly 
natural  and  innocent.  It  betrays  the  instinctive  analysis  by 
which  our  own  affections  separate  the  divine  from  the  human. 
Paul  was  right  in  his  principle,  that  in  history  the  divine  ele- 
ment lies  hid ;  is  missed  at  the  time,  even  by  those  who  are 
its  vehicle ;  and  does  not  parade  itself  in  what  they  conscious- 
ly design,  but  lurks  in  what  they  unconsciously  execute.  It 
comes  forth  at  "  the  end  of  the  ages,"  —  the  retrospect  of  fifty 
generations  instead  of  the  foresight  of  one.  This  doctrine  is 
true  of  individuals,  in  proportion  as  they  are  great  and  good. 
They  labor  at  what  is  most  difficult  to  them,  and  make  it 
their  end ;  but  their  appointed  power  lies  in  what  is  easiest. 
They  chiefly  prize  the  beliefs  and  the  virtues  most  painfully 
won ;  but  their  highest  truth  dwells  in  the  trusts  they  cannot 
help,  and  their  purest  influence  in  the  graces  they  never 
willed,  or  knew  to  be  their  own.  And  it  is  true  in  history ; 
Paul  himself  signally  illustrating  the  rule  which  he  had  ap- 
plied to  earlier  times.  He  had  found,  as  he  supposed,  the 
Providence  of  the  Past,  which  all  had  missed,  from  Moses  to 
Christ ;  but  in  his  turn  he  missed,  as  we  perceive,  the  Prov- 
idence of  the  Future,  from  himself  to  us.  The  kind  of  agency 
which  he  anticipated  for  Christ  bears  no  resemblance  to  that 
which  his  religion  has  actually  exercised.  The  only  fault 
we  can  find  with  Mr.  Thorn's  admirable  exposition  is,  that  he 
attributes  to  the  Apostle  too  distinct  an  apprehension  of 
Christ  as  an  impersonation  of  moral  perfection  ;  and  supposes 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  293 

the  purpose  of  the  Pauline  Christianity  to  have  been  the  es- 
tablishment, as  sole  condition  of  discipleship,  of  reverential 
sympathy  with  the  type  of  character  realized  in  the  Galilean 
life  of  Jesus.  He  says :  — 

"  In  contrast  with  such  teachers  "  (the  Ritual  and  the  Dog- 
matic), "  St.  Paul,  in  our  present  chapter  (1  Corinthians  ii.)> 
refers  both  to  the  matter  and  the  manner  of  his  own  ministra- 
tion of  the  Gospel.  He  did  not  teach  it  as  a  Rhetorician,  to 
attract  admiration  to  himself,  and  give  more  lively  impressions 
of  Paul  the  Orator  than  of  Christ  the  Redeemer  from  sin,  nor 
as  a  Philosopher,  to  raise  doubtful  questions  on  metaphysical 
subjects,  and  become  the  leader  of  a  speculative  school ;  but 
as  the  Apostle  of  Jesus  Christ,  he  proclaimed  to  the  hearts  of 
men  the  practical  and  life-giving  Gospel,  that  '  God  was  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself;  that  by  the  uni- 
versal Saviour  all  distinctions  were  for  ever  destroyed,  and 
the  whole  family  of  God  to  grow  into  the  common  likeness  of 
that  well-beloved  Son,  —  for  that  now  neither  circumcision 
availeth  anything,  nor  uncircumcision,  but  the  renewal  of  the 
affections  after  the  image  of  the  Lord.  Where  could  an  en- 
trance be  found  for  party  divisions  in  a  doctrine  that  pro- 
fessed nothing,  that  aimed  at  nothing,  except  to  awaken  the 
consciousness  of  sin  within  the  heart,  and,  through  trust  in 
the  God  of  holiness  and  love  revealed  in  Jesus,  to  lead  it  to 
repentance  and  life?  All  who  felt  this  love  of  Christ  con- 
straining them,  cleansing  their  souls  by  the  divine  image  that 
had  taken  possession  of  their  affections,  and,  through  the  mercy 
it  proclaimed,  encouraging  their  penitence  to  look  for  pardon 
from  their  God,  must,  of  necessity,  be  one  communion ;  for 
this  Gospel  sentiment  and  hope  could  create  no  divisions 
amongst  those  who  had  it,  —  and  those  who  had  it  not  were 
outside  the  Christian  pale,  and,  so  far,  could  make  no  schisms 
within  it.  Now,  whence  comes  this  Gospel  sentiment,  this 
new  principle  of  life  ?  Were  there  any  who  had  the  exclu- 
sive power  of  communicating  it?  Did  it  require  to  be  intro- 
duced by  any  intricate  reasonings,  by  any  subtle  dialectics, 
which  only  the  Masters  in  philosophy  had  at  their  command  ? 
25* 


294  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

Not  so,  says  St.  Paul ;  —  it  is  a  spiritual  feeling,  excited  by 
moral  sympathy,  as  soon  as  Christ  is  offered  to  the  hearts 
that  are  susceptible  of  the  sentiment ;  —  and  in  whatever  bo- 
som there  is  not  enough  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  cause  that 
moral  attraction  to  take  place,  neither  philosophy  nor  outward 
forms,  nor  aught  else  but  the  divine  image  of  goodness  kept 
before  the  heart,  can  awaken  the  slumbering  sensibilities 
which  are  the  very  faculties  of  spiritual  apprehension,  and 
which,  as  soon  as  they  are  alive,  behold  in  Christ  the  solution 
of  their  own  struggling  and  imperfect  existence,  their  ideal 
and  their  rest.  In  regard  to  a  sentiment  so  spiritual,  a  sym- 
pathy with  the  image  of  God,  where  is  the  possibility  of  intro- 
ducing party  divisions,  and  violating  Christian  unity  ?  There 
can  be  but  two  parties, —  those  that  have  the  sentiment,  and 
those  that  have  it  not.  All  Christians  constitute  the  one,  — 
and  as  for  the  other,  in  relation  to  Christian  unity,  they  are 
not  in  question.  Such  is  the  argument  of  St.  Paul  in  this 
second  chapter."  —  p.  30. 

It  may  be  quite  true  that  the  essential  power  of  Christian- 
ity resides  in  the  image,  ever  present  to  the  heart  of  Chris- 
tendom, of  a  God  resembling  Christ,  and  loving  those  who 
aspire  to  approach  him  through  the  same  resemblance.  But 
we  cannot  find  any  traces  of  such  a  conception  in  the  writ- 
ings of  Paul.  The  "  faith  "  on  which  he  exclusively  insisted 
would  be  very  incorrectly  denned,  we  conceive,  as  a  rever- 
ence of  Christ's  character  as  morally  like  God.  If  we  may 
judge  from  the  negative  evidence  of  his  letters,  he  appears  to 
have  had  no  insight  into  the  interior  of  his  Master's  eartlily 
life,  and  no  great  concern  about  it.  There  is  an  entire  absence 
of  any  moral  picture  of  Jesus,  who  is  presented  in  the  Apos- 
tolic writings  as  an  object,  not  of  retrospective  veneration,  but 
of  expectant  reliance ;  not  of  admiring  trust  for  personal  qual- 
ities realized  in  a  past  career,  but  of  hope  grounded  on  his 
official  destiny  in  the  future.  One  beauty  of  his  character  is, 
indeed,  appealed  to  in  the  Pauline  writings,  viz.  his  humil- 
ity and  self-renunciation  ;  *  but  even  this  is  recognized,  not 

*  See  Philippians  ii.  &  - 11. 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  295 

on  historical,  but  on  theocratic  grounds ;  it  is  illustrated,  not 
by  anything  in  his  life,  but  by  the  fact  of  his  death,  conceived 
as  a  voluntary  postponement  of  his  theocratic  prerogatives, 
and  an  abrogation  of  his  exclusive  nationality.  He  was  a 
"  spiritual "  object  to  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  not  from 
perception  of  the  inner  marks  and  graces  of  his  spirit,  but 
from  his  being  invisible  and  immortal,  reserved  in  heaven 
under  external  escape  from  the  conditions  of  earthly  life. 
Mr.  Thorn's  doctrine  is  a  happy  development  of  modern  truth 
from  ancient  error ;  but  regarded  as  a  mere  interpretation,  it 
perhaps  sets  down  to  the  Apostle's  account  a  just  moral  ap- 
preciation of  the  past,  instead  of  an  erroneous  conception  of 
the  Providence  of  the  future.  The  religion  of  Christ  has  as- 
suredly turned  out  a  very  different  phenomenon  from  any- 
thing that  was  anticipated  at  its  origin.  It  was  announced  as 
a  Kingdom ;  as  the  king  did  not  come,  it  became  a  Repub- 
lic. It  was  conceived  as  a  State ;  it  grew  up  into  a  Faith. 
It  was  proclaimed  as  the  world's  end ;  it  proved  to  be  a  fresh 
beginning.  It  was  to  consummate  the  Law  and  the  Proph- 
ets ;  and  it  confounded  both.  It  was  to  cover  Pagan  nations 
with  shame  and  destruction ;  it  embalmed  their  literature,  and 
was  transformed  by  their  philosophy.  It  was  to  deliver  over 
the  earth  to  the  pure  and  severe  Monotheism  of  the  Hebrews ; 
which,  however,  it  so  relaxed  as  to  provoke  Islam  into  exist- 
ence to  proclaim  again  the  monarchy  of  God.  Its  subjects 
were  to  be  gathered  from  the  Jews  and  half-castes  of  the 
Eastern  Synagogue ;  and  its  most  signal  glories  have  been 
among  the  Teutonic  nations,  and  the  then  unsuspected  con- 
tinents of  the  West.  In  every  element  of  its  internal  power, 
in  every  direction  of  its  external  action,  it  has  burst  all  the 
proportions,  left  behind  all  the  expectations,  with  which  it 
was  born ;  and  how  can  we  continue  to  try  it  by  the  standard 
of  its  origin  ?  Are  we  to  say,  that,  having  promised  one  thing 
and  become  another,  it  is  not  of  God  ?  That  might  be  well, 
if  it  had  fallen  short  of  its  own  professions, —  disappointed  us 
of  dreams  it  had  awakened  of  glory  and  delight.  But  if  it 
has  beenybrr  better  than  its  word;  if,  instead  of  winding  up 


296  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

the  world's  affairs,  it  has  given  them  a  new  career;  if  for 
Messiah's  tame  millennium  we  have  the  grand  and  struggling 
life  of  Christendom,  and  for  his  closed  books  of  judgment  the 
yet  open  page  of  human  history ;  if  for  the  earthly  throne  and 
sceptre  of  Christ,  sweeping  away  the  treasures  of  past  civil- 
ization, we  have  his  heavenly  image  and  spirit,  presiding  over 
the  re-birth  of  art,  the  awakening  of  thought,  the  direction  of 
law,  and  the  organism  of  nations ;  if  from  the  dignity  of  out- 
ward sovereignty  he  has  been  raised  to  that  of  Lord  of  the 
living  conscience,  not  superseding  the  soul,  but  exercising  it 
with  sorrow  and  aspiration ;  then,  surely,  in  so  outstripping 
itself,  the  religion  should  win  a  more  exceeding  measure  of 
trust  and  affection.  Had  it  only  realized  its  first  assurances, 
we  should  have  thought  it  divine ;  since  it  has  so  much  sur- 
passed them,  we  must  esteem  it  diviner.  There  is  no  reason 
for  the  common  assumption  that  a  religion  must  be  purest  in 
its  infancy.  It  is  no  less  surrounded  then,  than  at  each  sub- 
sequent time,  with  human  conditions,  and  transmitted  through 
human  faculties ;  and  when  delivered  to  the  world,  embodied 
in  action  or  in  speech,  necessarily  presents  itself  as  a  mixed 
product  of  divine  insight  and  of  human  thought,  —  of  the  liv- 
ing present  and  the  decaying  past ;  a  flash  of  heavenly  fire 
on  the  outspread  fuel  upon  the  altar  of  tradition.  So  it  is 
with  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament;  which  are  not 
the  heavenly  source,  but  the  first  earthly  result  and  expres- 
sion of  Christianity,  and  which  present  the  perishable  condi- 
tions as  well  as  the  indestructible  life  of  the  religion.  Only 
by  the  course  of  time  and  Providence  can  these  be  disengaged 
from  one  another,  and  the  accidents  of  place  and  nation  fall 
away.  If  there  dwell  in  the  midst  a  divine  productive  ele- 
ment, the  further  it  passes  from  the  moment  of  its  nativity, 
the  clearer  and  more  august  will  it  appear.  It  is  like  the 
seed  dropped  at  first  on  an  unprepared  and  unexpectant 
ground ;  which  in  its  earliest  development  yields  but  a  strug- 
gling and  scanty  growth,  but  each  season,  as  another  gener- 
ation of  leaves  falls  from  the  boughs,  becomes  the  source, 
through  richer  nutriment,  of  fuller  forms ;  till  at  length,  when 


THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  297 

it  has  spread  the  foliage  of  ages,  making  its  own  soil,  and 
deepening  the  luxuriance  of  its  own  roots,  a  forest  in  all  its 
glory  covers  the  land,  and  waves  in  magnificence  over  conti- 
nents once  bare  of  life  and  beauty.  So  is  it  with  the  germ  of 
divine  truth  cast  upon  the  inhospitable  conditions  of  history ; 
it  is  small  and  feeble  in  its  earlier  day ;  but  when  it  has  pro- 
vided the  aliment  of  its  own  growth,  and  shed  its  reproductive 
treasures  on  the  congenial  mind  of  generations  and  races,  it 
starts  into  the  proportions  of  a  Christendom,  and  becomes  the 
shade  and  shelter  of  a  world. 

Much,  therefore,  as  we  value  all  attempts  to  illustrate  the 
first  records  of  Christianity,  and  to  detach  what  was  purely 
human  and  transient  in  its  original  form,  we  think  that  the 
religion  itself  cannot  acknowledge  the  competency  of  such 
investigations  to  decide  upon  its  claims.  From  a  verdict  on 
itsjirst  works,  it  has  a  right  to  appeal  for  judgment  upon  the 
whole.  It  is  the  religion,  not  of  John  and  Paul  alone,  but  of 
Christendom ;  without  a  comparative  estimate  of  whose  moral 
and  social  genius,  it  can  by  no  means  be  appi'eciated.  The 
weakness  and  inadequacy  of  all  narrower  methods  of  defence 
will  in  the  end  drive  the  clergy  to  occupy  this  larger  basis  of 
operations.  And  the  change  will  be  not  more  favorable  to 
the  logic  of  their  cause  than  to  the  charity  of  their  disposition. 
So  long  as  the  Scriptures  alone  are  taken  as  the  standard,  no 
more  than  one  creed,  at  most,  can  be  regarded  as  concurrent 
with  the  Christian  faith.  But  when  the  entire  existence  of 
the  religion  through  eighteen  centuries  is  adopted  as  the  meas- 
ure, the  very  interests  of  advocacy  themselves  require  that 
the  best  construction  rather  than  the  worst  be  put  upon  the 
eiTors  and  eccentricities  of  all  churches  within  the  compass 
of  Christendom.  The  evidences  would,  in  that  case,  be  de- 
stroyed by  exclusiveness,  and  widened  in  their  foundations 
by  comprehensiveness  of  temper ;  and  the  firmness  of  every 
disciple's  faith  and  the  energy  of  his  zeal  would  become  as- 
surances, not  of  his  limitation  of  mind,  but  of  his  largeness  of 
heart.  Instead  of  endless  divisions,  multiplied  in  the  search 
after  unity,  we  might  hope  to  see  the  lines  of  separation  be- 


298  THE    CREED    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

come  ever  fainter ;  and  every  test  of  Christianity  withdrawn 
except  that  of  moral  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  Christ ;  a 
test  which,  as  God  alone  can  apply  it,  man  cannot  abuse ;  and 
according  to  which  many  that,  in  the  ecclesiastic  roll,  have 
been  first,  shall  be  last,  and  the  last  first. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  CHRISTENDOM. 


The  Temporal  Benefits  of  Christianity  exemplified  in  its  In- 
fluence on  the  Social,  Intellectual,  Civil,  and  Political  Con- 
dition of  Mankind,  from  its  first  Promulgation  to  the  pres- 
ent Day.  By  ROBERT  BLAKET.  London.  1849. 

Small  Books  on  Great  Subjects.  Edited  by  a  few  Well- 
Wishers  to  Knowledge.  No.  19.  On  the  State  of  Man 
subsequent  to  the  Promulgation  of  Christianity.  London. 
1851. 

The  Connection  of  Morality  with  Religion ;  a  Sermon, 
preached  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Patrick,  at  an  Ordina- 
tion held  by  the  Lord  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  Sunday,  Sep- 
tember 21,  1851.  By  WILLIAM  FITZGERALD,  A.M.,  Vicar 
of  St.  Ann's,  and  Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  the 
University  of  Dublin.  London.  1851. 

OP  these  works,  the  third  treats  theoretically,  the  others 
practically,  of  the  relation  of  Christianity  to  human  nature. 
The  preacher  seeks  in  the  natural  conscience  for  the  moral 
ground  and  receptacle  of  revelation ;  while  the  historians  trace 
its  moral  operation  in  society  and  life.  Were  both  tasks  per- 
fectly performed,  we  should  be  furnished  with  a  complete  image 
of  the  religion  at  once  in  its  idea  and  its  expression  ;  should  be 
able  definitely  to  compare  its  promise  with  its  achievements 
and  to  submit  it,  as  a  whole,  to  philosophical  appreciation.  But 
the  two  halves  of  the  subject  are  exhibited  with  very  unequal 
success.  It  is  much  easier  to  show  the  intended  than  the 


300  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

actual  influence  of  the  Christian  faith  upon  the  character  of 
its  disciples,  —  to  determine  by  a  priori  methods  what  it  must 
be,  than  by  an  a  posteriori  induction  to  estimate  what  it  has 
been,  and  is.  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  as  becomes  a  professor  of  ethical 
science,  has  well  contended  that  the  religion  which  he  recom- 
mends from  the  pulpit  is  neither  indifferent  nor  supercilious 
towards  the  morals  which  he  teaches  from  the  University  chair, 
—  but  assumes  their  obligation,  appeals  to  their  authority,  and, 
in  its  mode  of  reconciling  the  human  will  with  the  Divine, 
raises  them  into  eternal  sanctities.  It  addresses  itself  to  man 
as  a  being  already  conscious  of  responsibility ;  and  simply  pro- 
poses to  restore  reason  and  conscience  to  that  supremacy  in 
fact  which  of  right  they  can  never  lose.  How  far  has  this  aim 
been  visibly  realized  ?  Are  the  traces  of  a  Divine  renovation 
clear  upon  the  face  of  Christendom  ?  Is  there  the  difference 
between  ancient  Greece  and  modern  England,  or  between  the 
empire  and  the  papacy  of  Rome,  which  might  be  expected 
between  an  unregenerate  world  and  a  regenerate  ?  The  his- 
torical answer  to  these  questions  is  attempted  by  Mr.  Blakey, 
with  perhaps  adequate  resources  of  knowledge,  but  with  so  im- 
perfect an  apprehension  of  the  requisites  of  his  argument,  that 
his  book,  though  often  instructive  in  detail,  is  altogether  inef- 
fective as  a  whole.  He  is  content  to  select  and  enumerate  the 
most  salient  and  favorable  points  in  the  transition  from  an- 
cient to  modern  civilization,  and  to  set  them  down  to  the  credit 
of  Christianity ;  without  care  to  disengage  the  action  of  con- 
current causes,  or  to  balance  the  account  by  reference  to  more 
questionable  effects.  A  much  finer  analysis  is  needed,  in 
order  to  draw  from  history  its  real  testimony  on  this  great 
matter ;  and  nothing  can  well  be  more  arbitrary,  than  to  stroll 
through  some  fifteen  centuries,  and,  gathering  up  none  but  the 
most  picturesque  and  beneficent  phenomena,  weave  them  into  a 
glory  to  crown  the  faith  with  which  they  co-exist.  In  Chris- 
tendom, all  the  great  and  good  things  that  are  done  at  all  will 
of  course  be  done  by  Christians,  and  will  contain  such  share 
of  the  religious  element  as  may  belong  to  the  character  of  the 
actor  or  the  age;  but  before  you  can  avail  yourself  of  them 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  301 

in  Christian  Apologetics,  it  must  be  shown  that,  under  any 
other  faith,  no  social  causes  would  have  remained  adequate 
either  to  produce  them  or  to  provide  any  worthy  equivalent. 
Because  Charlemagne,  after  baptizing  the  Saxons  in  their 
own  blood,  displayed  a  better  zeal  by  establishing  cathedral 
and  conventual  schools,  therefore  to  put  the  horn-book  of  the 
liberal  arts  into  the  hand  of  his  religion,  while  leaving  the 
wet  sword  to  stain  his  own ;  because  chivalry  blended  in  its 
vow  "fear  of  God "  with  "  love  of  the  ladies,"  therefore  to 
trace  all  loyalty  and  courtesy  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Church; 
because  the  mediaeval  schoolmen  imported  into  every  science 
the  canons  of  Divinity,  and  decided  between  Realism  and  Nom- 
inalism on  eucharistic  principles,  therefore  to  give  the  priest- 
hood all  the  honors  of  modern  philosophy  and  intellectual 
liberty,  —  is,  to  say  the  least,  very  vulnerable  logic  and  very 
superficial  history.  Of  a  far  superior  order  is  the  little  book 
"On  the  State  of  Man  subsequent  to  the  Promulgation  of 
Christianity."  In  a  previous  treatise,  "  On  the  State  of  Man 
before  the  Promulgation  of  Christianity,"  the  author  had  passed 
under  rapid  review  the  ancient  systems  of  civilization,  —  sta- 
tionary, progressive,  aggressive;  and  having  seized  on  their 
characteristic  features,  he  now  brings  with  him  determinate 
points  of  comparison  into  his  survey  of  the  post-Apostolic 
times.  The  view  which  he  spreads  beneath  your  eye  of  the 
world,  as  it  lay  ready  to  afford  a  channel  for  the  Christian 
faith,  is  remarkable  for  breadth  and  truth.  Conducting  you, 
with  the  wide  picture  in  your  mind,  to  the  pure  head-spring 
in  Galilee,  and  keeping  close  to  the  stream  as  it  descends  and 
opens  from  these  sequestered  heights,  he  enables  you  to  see, 
reach  by  reach,  where  it  fertilizes  and  where  it  destroys ;  the 
new  fields  of  life  it  enters,  the  old  landmarks  of  habit  it  over- 
whelms. The  author  is  not  more  familiar  with  the  Christian 
Apologists  and  Fathers,  than  with  the  later  Latin  and  revived 
Greek  literature  from  Trajan  to  Aurelian ;  and  by  skilfully 
noting  the  moments  when  Pagan  and  Christian  life  not  only 
stood  in  silent  co-presence,  but  came  into  active  contact,  he 
brings  out  into  clear  relief  the  new  type  of  character  which 
26 


302  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

formed  itself  within  the  communities  of  disciples.  That  type 
is  so  strikingly  original,  its  features  so  conspicuously  express 
an  order  of  passions  and  ideas  strange  alike  to  the  Hellenic 
and  the  Italian  races,  as  to  betray  the  creative  action  of  some 
vast  moral  power  unborrowed  from  the  established  civilization. 
When  the  free  Roman  breaks  the  bread  of  communion  with 
slaves,  —  when  the  slippery  Syrian  forswears  lying  and  theft, 
—  when  the  heedless  Greek  changes  his  eagerness  of  the 
moment  into  a  living  for  eternity,  —  when  a  people  ignorant 
of  Stoic  maxims  display  a  contempt  of  torture  and  death  sub- 
limer  than  the  ideal  of  the  Porch,  —  an  influence  is  plainly 
at  work  which  has  penetrated  to  hitherto  unawakened  depths 
of  the  human  soul.  The  phenomenon  is  the  more  impressive, 
when  regard  is  had  to  the  materials  from  which  the  early 
Christian  communities  were  gathered.  It  cannot  be  imagined 
that  they  were  composed  of  elements  particularly  choice  ;  and, 
indeed,  amid  the  universal  corruption  of  morals  and  exhaus- 
tion of  wholesome  life,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how,  if  the 
Christian  doctrine  had  enforced  a  rigorous  selection,  instead  of 
indiscriminately  inviting  innocence  and  guilt,  any  decent  ele- 
ments could  have  been  collected.  Without  adopting  Gibbon's 
contemptuous  estimate  of  the  body  of  primitive  believers,  we 
cannot  doubt  that  it  comprised  very  mixed  ingredients ;  we 
know  that  it  contained  great  numbers  of  the  servile  class,  and 
very  few  whose  station  and  culture  gave  them  access  to  the 
higher  ideas  familiar  to  the  schools  of  philosophy :  yet  from 
these  unpromising  sources  arose  a  society,  which,  in  severity 
of  morals,  in  intensity  of  affection,  in  heroism  of  endurance, 
reversed  the  habits  of  the  world  to  which  they  belonged.  It 
seems  to  us  an  idle  question  for  sceptical  criticism  to  raise, 
whether  the  religion  of  Christ  comprised  in  its  teachings  any 
ethical  element  absolutely  new.  If  genius  had  conceived  it 
all  before,  life  had  not  produced  it  till  now ;  and  the  more  you 
affirm  the  philosophers'  competency  to  think  it,  the  more  do 
you  convict  them  of  inability  to  realize  it.  But  in  morals 
scarcely  can  there  be  clear  intellectual  conception  of  principles 
not  yet  embodied  in  living  character.  As  in  the  highest  works 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  303 

of  art,  the  thing  seen  is  far  other  than  the  thing  imagined  and 
described ;  not  doctrines,  but  persons,  are  here  the  only  ex- 
pression of  the  truth ;  and  till  they  appear,  ethical  forms  are 
but  as  the  human  clay  without  the  vital  fire.  In  the  statement 
of  thought,  the  early  Christians,  not  excepting  the  Scripture 
writers,  are  rude  and  unskilled ;  and  a  taste  formed  from  the 
study  of  Plato  and  Seneca  may  be  offended  by  the  rusticity  of 
Mark,  and  the  abruptness  of  Paul.  But  whoever  can  rise 
above  the  level  of  a  merely  intellectual  critique,  and  embrace, 
with  our  anonymous  author,  the  whole  phenomenon  of  the  first 
centuries  of  our  era,  will  see  a  glow  of  self-denying  faith,  and 
a  deep  movement  of  conscience,  affording  manifest  announce- 
ment of  a  new  edition  of  human  nature. 

That  edition  has  now  been  extant  for  many  centuries  ;  and 
is  variously  legible  in  the  literature,  the  institutions,  the  pri- 
vate manners  of  Christendom.  The  Christian  ideal  of  human 
life  lies  as  an  open  book  before  us  ;  yet  as  a  book  so  various 
in  its  versions,  and  so  overlaid  with  comments,  that  the  fresh 
flavor  of  its  language,  and  even  the  finer  essence  of  its  thought, 
are  in  danger  of  being  lost.  The  actual  Christianity  of  each 
successive  age,  and  each  contemporary  nation,  is  the  express 
result,  not  only  in  its  dogma,  but  in  its  life,  of  two  component 
terms,  —  a  given  matter,  and  a  given  faculty  of  faith.  How- 
ever full  and  constant  the  former  may  be  in  itself,  the  latter  is 
perpetually  variable  with  the  knowledge  and  passions  of  the 
time,  and  the  special  genius  of  individual  leaders  ;  nor  can 
this  variation  of  insight  in  the  mind  fail  to  neutralize  some 
portion  of  truth,  and  to  give  disproportionate  magnitude  to 
others.  The  data  supplied  by  inspiration  itself  form  no  ex- 
ception to  this  rule.  Delivered  into  the  charge  of  the  human 
soul,  they  fall  into  the  moulds  of  its  recipient  nature,  take 
their  immediate  form  from  the  laws  of  its  life,  and  are  reacted 
on  from  its  independent  activity.  The  immutable  custody  of 
anything  by  a  finite  thinking  subject,  involves  the  most  evident 
contradiction  ;  the  very  contact  with  human  intelligence  re- 
duces universal  truth  to  partial,  the  permanent  to  the  variable, 
the  secure  to  the  contingent.  It  is  only  in  the  essential  Unity 


304  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

of  Reason  and  Conscience  in  every  age,  that  we  find  the 
means  of  correcting  the  aberrations  and  verifying  the  insight 
of  all  particular  men.  Not  that  we  are  to  conceive  of  the 
human  race  collectively  as  one  large  person,  of  which  individ- 
ual minds  are  vital  organs,  and  which  has  a  necessary  growth 
and  development,  entitling  each  century  to  boast  of  advance 
beyond  its  predecessors.  We  know  of  no  spiritual  units,  of 
no  personalities,  except  each  single  and  separate  will ;  nor 
do  we  find  anything  in  their  mutual  relation  which  necessarily 
determines  them  to  uninterrupted  improvement,  and  excludes 
the  encroachment  of  degeneracy  and  falsehood.  Indeed,  no 
sorrier  product  is  there  of  human  conceit  and  ignorance  than 
the  cant  of  "  progress,"  which  assumes  that  every  newest  phase 
of  thought  is  wisest.  But  if  all  men  are  endowed  with  radi- 
cally the  same  faculties,  however  various  in  their  intensities 
and  proportions,  there  is  a  court  of  appeal  in  permanent  sit- 
ting, where  the  normal  laws  of  intellectual  and  moral  appre- 
hension are  administered  against  all  provincial  prejudices  and 
transient  verdicts  of  error.  In  the  long  run,  the  healthy  per- 
ceptions of  good  eyes  will  outvote  the  discoloring  effects  of 
all  ophthalmic  epidemics,  how  obstinate  and  wide  soever  they 
may  be.  And  the  moral  vision  of  mankind  will  no  less  vindi- 
cate its  natural  rights,  by  returning  again  and  again  into  clear 
discernments,  and  settled  admirations,  and  discharging  the  illu- 
sory forms  and  false  tints  of  each  separate  age.  To  deny  the 
ethical  competency  of  the  mind  for  this  office,  —  to  say  that 
there  is  no  power  given  for  deciding  what,  among  the  claim- 
ants on  reverence,  is  really  noble,  true,  and  good,  —  is,  with 
all  its  pietistic  pretences,  an  act  of  the  profoundest  scepticism, 
washing  away,  as  a  quicksand,  the  only  rock  on  which  any 
faith  can  be  built.  It  is  to  treat  the  durable  source  of  truth 
as  evanescent  and  uncertain,  and  shut  out  the  possibility  of  all 
religion.  On  the  other  hand,  to  set  up  and  idolize  the  life  and 
thought  of  any  one  time  as  an  unquestionable  rule  for  all 
times,  and  stereotype  it  for  unmodified  reproduction,  is  to  treat 
the  evanescent  as  the  durable,  and  build  on  whatever  stands 
above  the  water,  heedless  whether  it  be  the  quicksand  or  the 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  305 

rock.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  this  particular  superstition,  and 
that  general  unbelief,  —  an  apparent  antithesis  of  error, — 
usually  meet  in  the  same  mind,  and  constitute  together  the 
chief  theology  of  most  visible  churches.  Having  deposed  and 
insulted  the  eternal  sanctities,  they  coax  and  flatter  the  letter 
of  Scripture  to  accept  the  vacant  throne,  and  exchange  the 
holy  modesty  of  its  administration  for  a  universal  empire  of 
pretence.  They  drain  off  the  springs  of  inspiration  at  their 
fountain-head,  and  turn  all  history  into  a  plain  of  sand,  that 
they  may  magnify  their  Hebrew  reservoir  as  the  world's  sole 
supply ;  forgetting  that,  when  cut  off  from  the  running  waters, 
the  choicest  store  loses  its  fresh  virtues,  and  the  fairest  lake, 
shut  up  without  exit,  turns  into  a  Dead  Sea.  In  contradiction 
of  both  errors,  we  shall  assume  that  transitory  elements  can- 
not fail  to  mix  themselves  with  the  expression  of  the  purest 
inspiration,  —  the  horizon  of  human  relations  and  expressible 
things  around  even  the  divinest  soul  being  limited;  and 
that,  as  the  inspiration  tries  itself  upon  age  after  age,  bringing 
into  distinct  consciousness  now  one  side  of  truth  and  now 
another,  it  becomes  more  and  more  possible  to  find  its  essence 
and  eliminate  its  accidents,  to  save  its  catholic  beauties  apart 
from  its  sectional  distortions.  The  Christian  ideal  of  life  is 
not  to  be  looked  for  in  what  is  special  to  the  Crusader  or  the 
Quaker,  —  to  Puritan  or  Cavalier,  —  to  Platonists  of  the  sec- 
ond century  or  Aristotelians  of  the  twelfth,  —  to  Aquinas  or 
Luther,  —  to  John  or  Paul ;  but  in  such  sentiment  as  was 
common  to  them  all,  and  attached  to  them  as  citizens  of  Chris- 
tendom. When  this  element  is  disengaged  from  all  that  en- 
cumbers it,  it  will  be  found  pervading  and  animating  still 
whatever  is  noblest  in  our  modern  life  ;  while  all  that  is  nar- 
row, and  weak,  and  unworthy  in  the  moral  doctrine  of  our 
age,  springs  from  a  forced  attempt  to  perpetuate  the  acciden- 
tal modes  of  the  Apostolic  period. 

Every  one  is  sensible  of  a  change  in  the  whole  climate  of 
thought  and  feeling,  the  moment  he  crosses  any  part  of  the 
boundary  which  divides  Christian  civilization  from  Heathen- 
dom ;  yet  of  nothing  is  it  more  difficult  to  render  any  compen- 
26* 


306  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

dious  account.  It  is  easy  to  enumerate  in  detail  the  phenom- 
ena which  are  modified  or  disappear ;  just  as  on  entering  a 
new  physical  region  the  travelling  naturalist  may  register  the 
new  species  of  plants  and  animals,  that,  one  after  another,  pre- 
sent themselves  to  his  research.  But  these  do  not  paint  the 
scene  before  even  the  learned  eye ;  they  are  the  separate  out- 
comings  of  a  great  life-thrill,  into  whose  current  their  roots 
penetrate  ;  the  landscape,  as  a  whole,  speaks  differently  to  the 
mind,  and  the  whole  heaven  and  earth  seem  pregnant  with  a 
thought  unfelt  before.  To  read  off  that  thought,  requires  an 
apprehension  the  converse  of  the  analytic  vision  of  science. 
The  same  difficulty  occurs  when  we  endeavor  to  seize  the  la- 
tent principle  of  a  natural  realm  of  history.  Such  principle, 
however,  there  must  be.  Beneath  all  the  moving  tides  of 
Christian  thought  there  lie  still  depths  that  supply  them  all, 
and  a  centre  of  equilibrium  around  which  they  sweep.  We 
believe  that  the  fundamental  idea  of  Christendom  may  be 
described  to  be  the  ascent  through  Conscience  into  commun- 
ion with  God.  Other  religions  have  lent  their  sanctions  to 
morality,  and  announced  the  Divine  commands  to  the  human 
will;  but  only  as  the  laws  of  an  outward  monarch  within 
whose  sovereignty  we  lie,  and  who,  ruling  in  virtue  of  his 
almightiness,  has  a  right  to  obedience,  ordain  as  he  will.  Other 
religions,  again,  have  aimed  at  a  union  with  God.  But  the 
conditions  of  this  union,  dictated  by  misleading  conceptions  of 
the  Divine  nature,  have  missed  on  every  side  the  true  level  of 
human  dignity  and  peace.  Manichaeism,  deifying  the  antith- 
esis of  matter,  takes  the  path  of  ascetic  suppression  of  the 
body.  The  Indian  Pantheist,  imagining  the  Divine  Abyss  as 
the  realm  of  night  and  infinite  negation,  strives  to  hold  in  the 
breath  and  sink  into  self-annulment.  Plato,  seeing  in  God 
the  essence  of  thought,  demands  science  and  beauty,  not  less 
than  goodness,  as  the  needful  notes  of  harmony  with  him,  and 
appoints  the  approach  to  heaven  by  academic  ways.  The 
modern  Quietists,  worshipping  a  Being  too  much  the  reflection 
of  their  own  tenderness,  have  lost  themselves  in  soft  affections, 
relaxing  to  the  nerves  of  duty,  and  unseemly  in  the  face  of 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  307 

eternal  law.  Christianity  alone  has  neither  crushed  the  soul 
by  mere  submission,  like  Mohammedanism ;  nor  melted  it  away 
hi  the  tides  of  infinite  being,  like  Pantheistic  faiths ;  but  has 
saved  the  good  of  both,  by  establishing  the  union  with  God 
through  a  free  act  of  the  individual  soul.  Assigning  to  him  a 
transcendent  moral  nature,  sensitive  to  the  same  distinctions, 
conservative  of  the  same  solemnities,  which  awe  and  kindle 
us,  it  singles  out  the  conscience  as  the  field  where  we  are  to 
meet  him,  —  where  the  bridge  will  be  found  of  transit  between 
the  human  and  the  divine.  No  fear  or  servility  remains  with 
an  obedience  consisting,  not  in  mystic  acts  and  artificial  habits, 
but  in  the  free  play  of  natural  goodness ;  and  rendered,  not 
in  homage  to  a  Supreme  Autocrat,  but  in  sympathy  with  a 
Mind  itself  the  infinite  impersonation  of  all  the  sanctities. 
Nor  are  any  dizzy  and  perilous  flights  incurred  by  a  devotion 
which  meets  its  great  Inspirer  in  no  foreign  heaven,  but  in 
the  higher  walks  of  this  home  life,  and  misses  him  only  in 
what  is  mean  and  low.  The  place  assigned  in  Christianity 
to  the  moral  sentiments  and  affections  has  no  parallel  in  any 
other  religion.  The  whole  faith  is  as  an  unutterable  sigh 
after  an  ideal  perfection.  Holiness  eternal  in  heaven,  incar- 
nate on  earth,  and  to  be  realized  in  men,  —  this  is  the  circle 
of  conceptions  in  which  it  moves.  Its  very  name  for  the  In- 
spiration which  mediates  all  its  work,  expresses  the  same 
thing.  It  is  not  simply  an  evdovo-iacrpds,  —  not  pavia,  —  not 
j3dKXf  la,  —  hut  the  irvevpa  ayiov.  The  Daemon  of  Socrates  — 
the  least  heathenish  of  heathen  men  —  was  but  an  intellect- 
ual guide,  and  checked  his  erring  judgment ;  the  Holy  Spirit 
guards  the  vigils  of  duty,  and  succors  the  disciple's  tempted 
will.  This  profound  sense  of  interior  amity  with  God  through 
faithfulness  to  our  highest  possibility,  appears  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures  under  two  forms,  —  the  positive  and  the  negative,  — 
each  the  complement  of  the  other.  In  the  Gospel,  Jesus  him- 
self, as  befits  the  saintly  mind  lifted  above  the  strife  of  passion, 
describes  the  aspiration  after  goodness  as  the  native  guidance 
of  the  soul  to  her  source  and  refuge.  In  the  Epistles,  Paul, 
pouring  forth  the  confessions  of  a  fiery  nature,  proclaims  the 


308  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

sense  of  sin  to  be  the  contracted  hinderance  that  bars  the  as- 
cent,  and  against  which  the  wings  of  the  struggling  will  beat 
only  to  grow  faint.  These  representations  are  evidently  but 
the  two  sides  of  the  same  doctrine  seen  from  the  heavenly  and 
from  the  earthly  position.  Whether  we  are  told  what  the 
good  heart  will  find,  or  what  the  guilty  must  lose,  the  lesson 
equally  recognizes  the  Divine  authority  of  conscience.  The 
benediction  and  the  curse  are  but  the  bright  and  the  dark 
hemisphere  of  one  perfect  truth.  The  Apostle,  standing  in 
the  shadow  of  the  world's  night,  and  regarding  its  averted 
face,  dwells  on  the  gloom  of  alienation,  —  the  "  foolish  heart 
that  is  darkened,"  —  the  "  reprobate  mind  "  from  which  God 
is  hid.  Christ,  conscious  of  the  holy  light,  and  knowing  how 
it  penetrates  the  folds  of  willing  natures,  and  wakes  what  else 
would  sleep,  speaks  rather  of  the  glory  that  is  not  denied,  and 
utters  that  deepest  of  blessings,  —  "  The  pure  in  heart  shall 
see  God."  To  this  bright  side  also  the  Pauline  view  in  the 
end  comes  round.  For  though  in  him  we  miss  that  recog- 
nition of  a  natural  human  goodness  which  gives  such  grace 
and  sweetness  to  many  of  the  parables ;  though  in  his  scheme 
the  human  will  has  not  only  betrayed  its  trust,  but  hopelessly 
crippled  its  powers ;  yet  he  does  not  leave  it  in  the  collapse 
of  paralysis,  with  the  hard  saying  that  it  can  in  no  wise  lift 
up  itself,  but  points  to  a  hope  that  bends  over  it  from  above. 
The  soul  that  is  too  far  gone  to  act,  may  still  be  capable  of 
love ;  if  unable  to  trust  itself,  it  may  trust  another ;  if  it  can- 
not command  its  volitions,  it  may  surrender  its  affections  ;  can 
reverence,  can  aspire,  can  yield  its  hand,  like  a  child,  to  an 
angel  of  deliverance.  Beyond  the  precincts  of  this  world  is 
an  Image  of  divine  excellence  and  beauty,  —  one  recently 
withdrawn  from  human  history,  and  soon  to  have  a  more  au- 
gust return.  It  is  but  to  turn  the  eye  and  give  the  heart  to 
that  ideal  and  immortal  perfection,  and  in  the  light  of  so  pure 
a  love,  the  clouds  will  clear  from  the  conscience,  and  lift  them- 
selves as  a  nightmare  away ;  the  lame  will,  forgetting  its  in- 
firmities, will  spring  up  and  walk  ;  and  the  restoration,  impos- 
sible by  flight  from  deformity  and  ill,  will  come  through  the 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  309 

attraction  of  a  Divine  sanctity  ana  goodness.  Thus  does  the 
Apostle  snatch  the  disciple  at  last  into  the  right  perceptions 
which  Christ  assumes  to  be  possible  at  first ;  and  in  both  its 
primitive  developments  the  Christian  religion  implies  the  com- 
munion of  man  with  God  through  purity  of  heart. 

To  this  sentiment,  conveyed  with  living  realization  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ,  may  be  referred  whatever  is  distinc- 
tively great  in  Christian  ethics.  Proposing,  as  an  end  within 
their  reach,  the  ascent  of  the  soul  to  a  divine  life,  and  as  the 
means,  a  simple  surrender  to  its  own  highest  intimations,  they 
have  melted  away  the  interval  between  earthly  and  heavenly 
natures,  —  not  by  humanizing  God,  but  by  consecrating  man. 
In  treating  the  lower  desires  of  sense  and  self  as  the  steams 
that  intercept,  the  tender  reverences  as  the  clear  air  that 
transmits,  the  light  of  lights,  they  have  struck  the  deepest 
truth  of  human  consciousness.  Hence  the  temper  of  aspira- 
tion,—  the  earnest  ideality, —  the  sense  of  infinite  want,  with 
faith  in  infinite  possibilities,  —  the  sorrowful  unrest  in  the 
present,  with  irrepressible  struggle  for  a  better  future,  — 
which  are  impressed  on  the  poetry,  the  art,  the  social  life  of 
Christendom.  Unlike  the  expression  of  the  Hellenic  mind, 
they  are  rather  a  prayer  for  what  might  be,  than  a  joy  in 
what  is.  Hence,  too,  the  predominance  of  the  psychological 
and  subjective  element  in  the  philosophy  of  modern  times, 
and  the  conversion  of  the  ancient  "  metaphysics  "  into  the  form 
of  "mental  science."  Man  would  never  have  ceased  to  be 
merged  in  nature,  and  registered  merely  as  a  part  of  its  con- 
tents ;  his  self-knowledge  would  not  have  vindicated  its  inde- 
pendent rights ;  his  mind  would  not  have  been  recognized  as 
the  court  of  record  for  the  moral  legislation  of  the  universe,  — 
had  not  his  religion  taken  him  deep  into  himself,  and  from  a 
new  point  shown  him  his  relation  to  all  else  ;  kindling  his  own 
consciousness  to  a  point  of  intense  brilliancy,  in  correspond- 
ence with  a  divine  centre,  which  must  be  sought  on  the  same 
axis  of  being,  —  like  the  two  determining  foci  of  an  infinite 
curve,  that  find  each  other  out,  while  the  realm  of  determined 
nature  lies  around,  as  the  configured  area,  or  the  bounding 


310  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

curve.  Of  the  external  world,  indeed,  too  little  account  has 
been  made  in  the  faith  of  Christians.  They  have  not  cared 
to  recognize  it  as  the  shrine  of  immanent  Deity ;  —  have 
stood  in  uneasy  relations  to  it ;  often  inimical  to  it ;  sometimes 
trying  to  get  rid  of  it  as  an  illusion ;  usually  regarding  it  as  a 
foreign  object,  like  a  great  statue  on  the  stage  of  being,  with 
only  stony  eyes  and  ears  for  the  real  play  of  passions  that 
whirl  around.  Existence,  in  its  essence,  has  been  felt  as  an 
interview  between  man  and  God,  at  which  space  and  nature 
have  been  collaterally  present,  but  in  which  it  was  not  appar- 
ent what  they  had  to  do.  Physical  science  and  the  plastic 
arts  may  have  reason  to  complain  of  the  depressing  influence 
of  this  imperfect  view,  and  of  the  hard  necessity  under  which 
it  places  them  of  pursuing  their  ends  with  only  scanty  and 
grudging  recognition  from  religion.  But,  for  the  philosophic 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  the  practical  regulation  of 
human  society,  this  isolation  of  the  soul  within  its  own  con- 
sciousness, —  this  concentrated  personality,  —  this  vivid  inter- 
change of  life  with  God  without  diffusion  through  benumbing 
media,  —  must  be  held  eminently  ennobling. 

If,  from  the  fundamental  Christian  sentiment,  we  descend 
to  the  scheme  of  Applied  Morals  which  it  organized  and  in- 
spired, the  principle  still  vindicates  itself  in  its  results.  The 
great  problems  of  life  are  supplied  from  two  sources,  —  the 
Persons  that  may  engage  our  affections,  and  the  Pursuits  that 
may  invite  our  will.  The  light  in  which  the  personal  rela- 
tions are  presented  before  the  eye  of  Christendom  is  undeni- 
ably benign  and  true.  It  has  never  been  obscured  without 
the  social  spread  of  injustice  and  discontent ;  nor  ever  cleared 
again,  but  as  the  precursor  of  reformation.  That  every 
human  soul  has  its  sacred  concerns  and  its  divine  communion, 
is  the  simplest  of  thoughts ;  but  so  deep  and  moving,  that, 
where  it  is  received  and  acknowledged,  it  calls  up  angelic  vir- 
tues ;  where  it  is  insulted  and  denied,  it  lets  slip  avenging 
fiends.  Wherever  it  is  sincerely  held,  it  secures  that  rever- 
ential feeling  towards  others,  beneath  whose  spell  the  selfish 
passions  sleep,  and  without  which  the  precept  of  courtesy  and 


THE   ETHICS    OP    CHRISTENDOM.  311 

the  definition  of  rights  are  an  ineffectual  form.  Power  loses 
its  insolence,  and  dependence  its  sting,  where  their  mutual 
relation  does  not  carry  the  whole  individuality  with  it,  but 
stops  with  the  limits  of  social  and  political  convenience,  and 
lies  under  the  restraining  protection  of  a  supreme  equality 
before  God.  The  "  Fraternity "  that  is  the  offspring  of  po- 
litical theories,  and  aims  to  neutralize  by  fellow-citizenship 
the  diversities  and  antipathies  of  nature,  is  often  the  watch- 
word of  envy  and  egotism,  shouted  by  the  voice  of  hatred,  and 
announcing  the  deed  of  violence.  It  is  for  want  of  faith  in 
that  highest  brotherhood  of  worship  and  responsibility  which 
Christianity  assumes,  that  impatient  schemes  are  formed  for 
artificially  equalizing  the  weak  and  the  strong,  and  abolishing 
the  relations  of  necessary  dependence.  Nor,  where  that  faith 
is  absent,  can  they  ever  be  answered  so  as  to  satisfy  the  feel- 
ing from  which  they  spring.  They  may  be  shown  to  be  im- 
practicable, and  crushed  by  the  relentless  argument  of  fact ; 
but  the  fact  will  be  protested  against  as  unnatural,  and  the 
impossibility  will  seem  a  cruelty.  How  differently  is  this 
topic  handled  by  the  logic  of  science  and  the  sentiment  of 
religion !  How  much  less  justly  does  the  former  draw  the 
line  between  natural  subordination  among  men  and  tyrannous 
oppression,  than  the  latter !  Aristotle  undertakes  the  defence 
of  slavery  on  grounds  both  of  philosophy  and  of  experience. 
Nature,  he  contends,  pursuing  a  definite  end  in  every  act  of 
creation,  assigns  to  some  things,  from  their  very  origin,  a  des- 
tiny to  rule,  while  imposing  on  others  a  necessity  of  being 
ruled.  Wherever  a  plurality  of  parts  concur  to  form  a  gen- 
eral whole,  dominant  and  subordinate  elements  present  them- 
selves. Even  within  the  inanimate  realm  this  is  apparent,  as 
in  the  case  of  harmony  in  music.  But  it  is  chiefly  conspic- 
uous in  the  sphere  of  animal  existence ;  the  body  being,  by 
nature,  servitor,  of  which  the  soul  is  lord.  In  the  highest 
stage  of  animate  being,  the  constitution  of  well-organized  men, 
this  law  comes  into  the  clearest  light ;  for  here  the  soul  sways 
the  body  with  absolute  command,  while  reason  exercises  over 
the  passions  the  prerogatives  of  a  royal  and  constitutional 


312  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

power ;  and  were  equality  to  be  substituted  for  these  modes  of 
subjection,  mischief  would  ensue  on  all  sides.  Not  less  evi- 
dently does  Nature  announce  the  dependence  of  inferior  on 
superior  in  the  rank  allotted  to  the  brutes  in  relation  to  man ; 
and  again,  in  the  case  of  the  two  sexes,  of  which  the  male,  as 
the  more  distinguished,  is  rendered  dominant.  The  same  ne- 
cessary law  adjusts  the  positions  of  mankind  inter  se.  All 
those  who  are  as  intrinsically  inferior  to  their  neighbors  as 
the  body  to  the  soul,  or  the  brute  to  the  man,  —  (and  this  is 
precisely  the  case  of  the  mere  manual  laborer,)  —  are  slaves 
by  nature ;  and  for  them,  as  for  the  body  and  the  brutes,  it  is 
better  to  be  servile  than  to  be  free.  Any  man  who  can  be 
made  property  of  by  another,  and  who  is  competent  to  under- 
stand a  master's  intelligence  without  a  spontaneous  stock  of 
his  own,  is  naturally  a  slave.  Such  a  one  performs  functions 
in  the  world  not  essentially  distinguished  from  those  of  the 
domestic  animals ;  the  destiny  of  both  is  to  contribute  their 
corporeal  energies  to  the  service  of  society ;  and  creatures  fit 
for  this  alone  are  brought  into  the  slave-market  by  Nature 
herself.  Consistently  with  this  conception  of  the  laborer  as  a 
living  tool  (8ov\os  ep^vxov  opyavov),  Aristotle  lays  it  down  that 
the  relation  of  master  and  slave  admits  no  rights,  and  excludes 
friendship.  To  our  modern  worshippers  of  strength,  this  will 
appear  commendable  doctrine,  very  much  because  they  have 
themselves  relapsed  into  the  old  Hellenic  way  of  studying  the 
problems  of  the  universe ;  descending,  in  the  Pantheistic 
method,  from  the  whole  upon  the  parts ;  fetching  rules  from 
the  wider  sphere  (therefore  the  lower)  to  import  into  the  nar- 
rower;  entering  the  human  world  from  the  physical,  —  the 
oiKovp-evT)  from  the  Koa-fws ;  approaching  society  as  a  specialty 
superinduced  on  a  groundwork  of  nomadic  barbarism ;  and 
determining  the  functions  of  the  individual  as  member  of  the 
vital  organism  of  the  state.  So  long  as  this  logical  strategy 
is  allowed,  the  Titans  will  always  conquer  the  gods  ;  the 
ground-forces  of  the  lowest  nature  will  propagate  themselves, 
pulse  after  pulse,  from  the  abysses  to  the  skies  ;  and  right 
will  exist  only  on  sufferance  from  might.  But  there  is  a 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  313 

heaven,  after  all,  which  the  most  trenchant  giant  cannot 
storm,  and  where  justice  and  sanctity  reserve  a  quiet  throne. 
Without  disputing  the  inequality  of  gifts  and  consequent  law 
of  natural  ranks,  religion  qualifies  it  by  an  addition  which 
overarches  and  absorbs  it.  Were  man  only  the  choicest,  most 
intelligent,  most  gregarious  of  the  mammalia,  —  were  the  theory 
of  his  affairs  a  mere  extension  of  natural  history,  —  we  might 
reasonably  discuss,  in  Aristotle's  way,  the  conditions  under 
which  he  may  fitly  be  put  in  harness.  But  there  is  in  him  an 
element  that  takes  him  beyond  the  range  of  a  Pliny  or  a  Cu- 
vier,  that  lifts  him  out  of  the  kingdom  of  nature  and  gives  him 
kindred  with  the  preternatural  and  divine.  He  is  not  simply 
an  instrument  for  achieving  a  given  fraction  of  a  universal 
end,  but  has  a  sacred  trust  which,  on  its  own  account,  he  is 
empowered  and  commissioned  to  discharge.  He  is  watched 
by  the  eyes  of  infinite  Pity  and  Affection,  braced  for  his  faith- 
ful work,  succored  in  his  fierce  temptations.  The  conditions 
of  dutiful,  loving,  noble  life  must  be  preserved  to  him.  Let 
his  task,  indeed,  be  suited  to  his  powers ;  and  if  he  cannot 
rule,  by  all  means  let  him  serve ;  but  still  with  a  margin  and 
play  of  spiritual  freedom  secure  from  encroachment  and  con- 
tempt. Those  on  whom  Heaven  lays  the  burden  of  duty  no 
power  on  earth  may  strip  of  rights.  The  conscience  with 
which  the  Highest  can  commune,  the  spirit  which  is  not  too 
mean  for  His  abode,  can  be  no  object  of  slight  and  scorn  from 
men.  By  law  and  usage  you  may  have  the  disposal  of  anoth- 
er's lot  and  labor ;  but  in  the  reality  of  things  the  lord  of  a 
province  may  be  less  than  the  conqueror  of  a  temptation. 
You  may  be  Greek,  and  he  barbarian  ;  but  in  the  heraldry  of 
the  universe,  the  blood  of  Agamemnon  is  less  noble  than  the 
spirit  of  a  saint.  In  thus  snatching  the  individual,  as  bearer 
of  a  holy  trust,  from  the  crush  of  nature  and  the  world,  Chris- 
tianity became  the  first  human  religion,  —  that  absolutely  took 
no  notice  of  race  and  sex  and  class.  It  created  a  new  order 
of  inalienable  rights,  neither  the  heritage  of  birth,  nor  the 
franchise  of  a  state,  but  inherent  in  the  moral  capabilities  of  a 
man.  The  free  opening  of  sanctity  and  immortality  to  every 
27 


314  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

willing  heart  could  not  fail  to  exercise  an  intense  influence  on 
the  better  portion  of  a  world,  like  the  declining  empire  of 
Rome,  sickened  with  corruption  and  confused  with  unmanage- 
able oppressions.  That  it  did  so,  is  proved  by  the  whole 
tenor  of  the  early  Christian  literature  ;  and  the  effect  is  well 
described  and  accounted  for  by  the  writer  "  On  the  State  of 
Man  subsequent  to  the  Promulgation  of  Christianity." 

"  The  mockery  of  adoring  as  gods  the  licentious  tyrants 
who  had  occupied  the  imperial  throne,  seems  to  have  put  an 
end  to  everything  like  religious  feeling  among  the  nations 
under  the  sway  of  Rome.  The  free  satire  of  Lucianus  shows 
how  completely  it  had  faded  away,  for  it  introduces  the  gods 
of  Olympus  complaining  that  they  were  starving  for  lack  of 
offerings ;  not  altogether  because  Christian  or  philosophic  doc- 
trines prevailed  widely,  but  rather  on  account  of  the  total 
indifference  of  the  people  to  their  ancient  mythology ;  for 
even  if  it  ever  had  symbolized  the  truth,  its  meaning  was  now 
forgotten ;  and,  even  so  far  back  as  the  time  of  Cicero,  had 
become  totally  unintelligible  to  the  learned,  as  well  as  to  the 
multitude.  It  was  useless,  therefore,  and  wanted  but  a  slight 
impulse  from  without  to  overthrow  it.  But  to  the  philosopher 
who  was  in  earnest  in  his  pursuit  of  this  truth,  buried  under 
the  rubbish  of  time,  the  doctrine  of  Christ  afforded  it ;  there 
he  found  all  that  the  master  minds  whom  he  honored  had 
taught  and  hoped;  but  he  found  it  simplified,  purified,  and 
confirmed  by  sanctions  such  as  Plato  had  wished  for,  but 
scarcely  dared  to  expect ;  —  to  the  Roman  patrician,  if  any 
there  were  who  still  looked  back  with  fond  memory  to  the 
purer  morals  and  stern  courage  of  his  forefathers,  the  Chris- 
tian simplicity  of  manners  and  firm  endurance  of  torture  and 
death  was  the  realization  of  what  he  had  heard  of  and  ad- 
mired, but  scarcely  seen  till  then;  —  to  the  slave,  sighing 
under  oppression  and  condemned  to  hopeless  bondage,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Gospel  gave  all  that  was  valuable  in  life ;  the 
Christian  slave  was  the  friend  of  his  Christian  master,  par- 
took of  the  same  holy  feast,  shared  the  same  painful  but 
glorious  martyrdom ;  he  was  raised  at  once  to  all  his  intellect- 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  315 

ual  rank,  found  freedom  beyond  the  grave,  and  lived  already 
in  a  happy  immortality ;  —  to  the  woman,  degraded  in  her 
own  eyes  no  less  than  in  those  of  the  tyrant  to  whose  lusts 
she  was  the  slave,  it  offered  a  restoration  to  all  that  is  most 
dear  to  the  human  race ;  it  offered  intellectual  dignity,  equal- 
ity before  God,  purity,  holiness.  The  Christian  woman  could 
die ;  she  could  not,  therefore,  unless  consenting  to  it,  be  again 
enslaved  to  the  vile  passions  of  men ;  before  God  she  was 
free,  and  with  Him  she  trusted  to  find  shelter  when  the  hard 
world  left  her  none.  Can  we  wonder,  then,  that  Christianity 
found  votaries  wherever  a  mind  existed  that  sighed  after  bet- 
ter things  ?  for  the  preacher  of  Nazareth  had  at  last  expressed 
the  thought  which  had  been  brooding  in  the  minds  of  so  many, 
who  had  found  themselves  unable  to  give  it  utterance."  — 
p.  55. 

Nor  was  it  merely  within  the  pale  of  the  Christian  frater- 
nity that  relations  of  mutual  reverence  and  tenderness  attested 
the  power  of  an  ennobling  faith.  Intensity  of  internal  com- 
bination is  often  balanced,  in  religious  brotherhoods,  by  vehe- 
mence of  external  repugnance ;  and  were  we  to  accept  the 
fiery  declamation  of  Tertullian  as  fairly  expressing  the  spirit 
of  his  fellow-believers,  we  could  ill  defend  them  from  the 
charge  of  fierce  antipathy  to  the  persons  as  well  as  the  creed 
of  their  Pagan  neighbors.  But  many  silent  mercies  appear 
which  contradict  this  loud  intolerance.  When  the  Decian 
persecution  and  its  attendant  tumultuary  movements  had  filled 
Alexandria  with  such  slaughter  as  to  breed  pestilence  from 
the  bodies  of  the  dead,  the  Christians,  instead  of  sullenly  per- 
mitting the  physical  calamity  to  avenge  their  cause,  assumed 
the  duties  of  public  nurses,  and  performed  the  loathsome  tasks 
from  which  priests  and  magistrates  had  fled.  Referring  to 
this  occasion,  the  author  just  cited  says  :  — 

"  The  plague  made  its  appearance  with  tremendous  violence, 
and  desolated  the  city,  so  that,  as  Dionysius,  the  Christian 
bishop,  writes,  there  were  not  so  many  inhabitants  left  of  all 
ages,  as  heretofore  could  be  numbered  between  forty  ;,:id  sev- 
enty. In  this  emergency  the  persecuted  Christians  forgot  all 


316  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

but  their  Lord's  precept,  and  were  unwearied  in  their  attend- 
ance on  the  sick ;  many  perishing  in  the  performance  of  this 
duty  by  taking  the  infection.  '  In  this  way,'  says  the  bishop, 
with  touching  simplicity,  '  the  best  of  the  brethren  departed 
this  life ;  some  ministers,  and  some  deacons,'  the  heathens 
having  abandoned  their  friends  and  relations  to  the  care  of 
the  very  persons  whom  they  had  been  accustomed  to  call 
*  Men-haters.'  A  like  noble  self-devotion  was  shown  at  Car- 
thage when  the  pestilence  which  had  desolated  Alexandria 
made  its  appearance  in  that  city,  and,  I  quote  the  words  of  a 
contemporary,  '  All  fled  in  horror  from  the  contagion,  aban- 
doning their  relations  and  friends  as  if  they  thought  that  by 
avoiding  the  plague  any  one  might  also  exclude  death  alto- 
gether. Meanwhile  the  city  was  strewed  with  the  bodies,  or 
rather  carcasses  of  the  dead,  which  seemed  to  call  for  pity 
from  the  passers-by,  who  might  themselves  so  soon  share  the 
same  fate ;  but  no  one  cared  for  anything  but  miserable  pelf; 
no  one  trembled  at  the  consideration  of  what  might  so  soon 
befall  him  in  his  turn ;  no  one  did  for  another  what  he  would 
have  wished  others  to  do  for  him.  The  bishop  hereupon 
called  together  his  flock,  and  setting  before  them  the  example 
and  teaching  of  their  Lord,  called  on  them  to  act  up  to  it 
He  said,  that  if  they  took  care  only  of  their  own  people,  they 
did  but  what  the  commonest  feeling  would  dictate ;  the  ser- 
vant of  Christ  must  do  more ;  he  must  love  his  enemies,  and 
pray  for  his  persecutors ;  for  God  made  his  sun  to  rise  and  his 
rain  to  fall  on  all  alike,  and  he  who  would  be  the  child  of  God 
must  imitate  his  Father.'  The  people  responded  to  his  appeal ; 
they  formed  themselves  into  classes,  and  those  whose  poverty 
prevented  them  from  doing  more  gave  their  personal  attend- 
ance, while  those  who  had  property  aided  yet  further.  No 
one  quitted  his  post  but  with  his  life."  —  p.  162. 

This  self-devotion  in  times  of  distress,  strangely  contrasting 
with  habits  and  temper  apparently  unsocial,  has  too  steadily 
reappeared  in  every  earnest  church  not  to  be  accepted  as  a 
Christian  characteristic.  During  the  fatal  famine  and  epi- 
demic which  desolated  Antioch  in  the  third  century,  the  Pagan 


THE   ETHICS    OF   CHEISTENDOM.  317 

governor,  when  urged  by  the  inhabitants  to  make  authoritative 
arrangements  for  relieving  the  sufferings  of  a  perishing  popu- 
lace, replied  that  "  The  gods  hated  the  poor " ;  while  the 
Christians,  prevailingly  poor  themselves,  plunged  into  the 
centre  of  the  danger,  and  carried  into  the  recesses  of  fever 
and  despair  the  quiet  presence  of  help  and  hope.  If  disciples 
have  thus  freely  rendered  to  "  those  without "  services  which 
Pagans  refused  to  one  another,  it  is  not  simply  in  stiff  obedi- 
ence to  a  precept  of  love  to  their  enemies,  but  from  a  heart- 
felt sentiment  of  honor  for  human  nature  and  consequent 
tenderness  of  human  life.  There  was  no  man  who,  though 
he  might  be  a  persecutor  to-day,  might  not  be  a  comrade  to- 
morrow ;  he  had  a  soul  susceptible  of  consecration  ;  and  day 
and  night  the  gates  of  the  Church  were  ready  to  fly  open  to 
the  touch  of  penitence ;  and  whether  he  throws  off  the  mask 
of  delusion  or  not,  he  must  be  treated  as  a  brother  in  disguise. 
Only  by  reference  to  this  conception  of  all  men  as  possible 
subjects  of  sanctifying  change,  can  the  fact  be  explained,  that 
even  where  the  creed  has  opened  an  infinite  gulf  between, 
believer  and  unbeliever,  the  active  charities  have  detained 
in  lingering  embrace  the  persons  whom  the  theoretic  fancy 
has  flung  into  the  ultimate  horrors.  A  religion  that  is 
superior  to  the  external  distinctions  of  lineage  and  class,  and 
draws  its  lines  only  by  the  invisible  coloring  of  souls,  must 
ever  be  a  religion  open  to  hope,  and  therefore  apt  to  love. 
Even  where  the  severest  doctrine  of  exclusion  has  prevailed, 
the  fundamental  sentiment  of  Christian  faith  has  saved  the 
heart  from  the  most  withering  of  all  passions,  —  the  blight  of 
scorn.  Human  nature  may  appear  beneath  the  eye  of  an 
austere  believer  in  an  awful,  but  never  in  a  contemptible  light. 
The  very  crisis  in  which  it  is  suspended  can  belong  to  no 
mean  existence.  What  it  has  lost  is  too  great  a  glory,  what 
it  has  incurred  is  too  deep  a  terror,  to  be  conceivable  except 
of  a  being  on  a  grand  scale.  He  is  no  worm  for  whom  the 
eternal  abysses  are  built  as  a  dungeon  and  the  lightnings  are 
brandished  as  a  scourge.  Accordingly,  the  very  alienations 
of  intolerance  itself  have  acquired  a  higher  and  more  respect- 
27* 


318  '    THE    ETHICS    OP    CHRISTENDOM. 

ful  character  than  in  ancient  faiths.  The  sort  of  feeling  with 
which  the  Jew  spurned  "  the  Gentile  dog "  is  sanctioned  by 
piety  no  more.  The  Oriental  curl  of  the  lip  is  scarcely  trace- 
able on  the  features  of  Christendom ;  and  is  replaced  by  an 
expression  of  tragic  sorrow  and  earnestness,  where  lights  of 
admiring  pity  flash  through  the  darkest  clouds. 

It  seems,  then,  that  the  essential  sentiment  of  all  Christian 
faith — the  communion  through  conscience  with  God  —  carries 
with  it,  not  only  noble  personal  aspirations,  but  also,  towards 
others,  affections  of  singular  generosity  and  depth ;  affections 
which  demand  for  every  man  a  position  in  which  he  may 
work  out  the  moral  problem  of  life,  which  dignify  every  lot 
where  this  is  possible,  and  which  soften  even  actual  alienations 
with  possible  reverence  and  hope.  The  sphere  of  action 
which  these  feelings  may  shape  for  themselves,  the  particular 
enterprises  they  may  undertake,  the  external  pursuits  they 
may  assume,  will  necessarily  depend  on  many  foreign  and 
accidents,!  conditions.  The  work  which  it  would  fall  to  the 
hands  of  the  same  faithful  man  to  do,  if  he  lived  on  through 
the  changes  of  the  world,  would  greatly  vary  from  age  to  age. 
The  work  which  contemporary  men,  of  equal  and  similar  fidel- 
ity, will  set  themselves  to  accomplish,  will  vary  with  their 
several  positions.  The  same  act,  or  even  habit,  which  is  inno- 
cent (though  possibly  not  innocuous)  in  one  place,  may  assume 
quite  an  altered  significance  in  another.  It  would  be  absurd, 
for  instance,  to  set  down  the  double  marriages  of  patriarchal 
times  in  the  same  moral  rank  with  modern  cases  of  bigamy. 
And  the  doctrine  of  Plato's  Republic  respecting  marriage, 
startling  as  a  comment  on  the  manners  of  his  age,  by  no 
means  expresses  the  odious  state  of  mind  which  would  be  im- 
plied in  its  substitution  now  for  the  sanctities  of  private  life. 
The  devotion  to  studious  and  peaceful  acts  which  may  usually 
be  either  blameless  or  laudable,  may  become  a  guilt  like  trea- 
son in  an  hour  when  the  interests  of  public  liberty  claim  every 
citizen  for  the  council  or  the  field.  Indeed,  the  conduct  in 
such  contrasted  instances  is  in  no  proper  sense  the  same  ;  it 
has  only  an  external  identity ;  it  is  a  physical  self-repetition, 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  319 

with  a  moral  contrariety ;  and  unless,  in  speaking  of  a  human 
action,  we  mean  to  shut  out  the  soul  which  makes  it  human, 
and  to  denote  only  the  muscular  flourish  and  spasm  of  limb, 
the  sameness  is  but  a  semblance  with  a  reality  of  difference. 
The  moral  values  of  actions,  taken  in  this  narrowest  sense,  are 
inevitably  variable ;  and  any  code  that  should  present  a  list 
of  them  as  obligatory  in  perpetuity,  without  regard  to  the 
changes  of  their  meaning  to  the  mind,  would  mistake  the 
very  nature  of  human  duty.  Not  that  we  deny  the  existence 
of  permanent  grounds  for  the  adoption  of  some  habits  and 
the  avoidance  of  others.  There  are  reasons,  unchangeable  as 
the  corporeal  frame  of  man,  why  opium  should  not  be  taken 
as  an  article  of  food,  and  why  cousins  should  not  intermarry. 
But  the  grounds  of  prohibition  in  these  cases  are  rationed,  not 
moral;  they  are  found  in  the  outward  effects,  not  in  the  in- 
ward sources,  of  conduct ;  and  only  when  its  outward  effects 
are  known  to  the  agent,  so  as  to  enter  among  its  inward  sources 
and  modify  its  meaning,  does  he  pass  from  unwise  to  im- 
moral. External  action,  in  short,  stands  as  an  indifferent  phe- 
nomenon, between  the  mind  that  issues  it  and  the  world  into 
which  it  goes.  The  thought  and  affection  whence  it  springs 
in  the  former  give  its  moral,  the  results  to  which  it  tends  in 
the  latter  its  rational  value.  Whoever  makes  a  correct  esti- 
mate of  the  several  affections  and  impulses  which  stir  the 
will,  and  throughout  their  scale  reveres  the  better  and  disap- 
proves the  worse,  possesses  moral  truth.  Whoever  perceives 
and  computes  the  real  consequences  of  voluntary  conduct, 
possesses  rational  discernment  in  human  affairs.  The  former 

—  an  interpretation  of  the  conscience  and  its  sacred  contents 

—  is  the  permanent  essence  of  ethical  and  root  of  religious 
wisdom.     The  latter  —  an  apprehension  of  physical  laws  and 
historical  tendencies  —  is  conditioned  by  the  progress  of  sci- 
ence and  the  facilities  for  social  vaticination.     Errors  in  this 
are  inevitable  to  the  limitations  of  human  intellect.     Perfec- 
tion in  that  is  possible  only  to  the  highest  divine  insight  hi  the 
soul.      The  fallible  judgment   respecting   outward  relations 
affects  only  the  accidents  of  morals,  though  the  essence  of 


320  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

scientific  truth.  Where  the  inner  apprehension  is  deep  and 
true,  the  outward  judgment  contains  a  principle  of  self-correc- 
tion ;  the  miscalculation  of  one  age  is  checked  by  that  of  a 
succeeding ;  opposite  errors  cancel  each  other ;  and  the  spirit 
of  a  pure  faith,  like  a  just  feeling  of  beauty  and  greatness  in 
art,  works  itself  clear  of  the  false  data  of  usage  amid  which 
its  inspiration  arose,  and  transmigrates  into  ever-improving 
forms.  If,  however,  the  reverence  due  to  the  inspiration 
should  become  a  traditional  affair,  losing  its  living  eye  and 
spiritual  tact,  it  will  extend  itself  as  a  moping  idolatry  to  the 
imperfect  media  and  rude  materials  through  which  the  new 
glory  first  gleamed ;  an  incapable  era  of  renaissance  will 
appear ;  the  very  works  which  were  given  as  the  spring  of 
ever-fresh  creation  will  be  used  to  stifle  it ;  in  servile  imitation 
of  an  original  period,  its  whole  character  will  be  lost,  and  the 
moment  of  exactest  reproduction  will  be  that  of  intensest 
contrast. 

This  is  precisely  the  way  in  which  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
primitive  Christians  has  been  dealt  with.  The  thought  and 
meaning  that  lay  at  its  heart  are  little  apprehended ;  its  ap- 
plied morals,  in  which  these  are  mixed  up  with  the  errors  in- 
cident to  their  point  of  view,  are  distorted  into  a  rigid  code  of 
obligation,  in  which  the  original  idea  is  often  entirely  reversed. 
If  it  be  really  true  that  the  Apostolic  age  was  impressed 
with  the  belief  of  a  speedy  end  of  the  world,  such  an  outlook 
must  undeniably  have  affected  the  disciples'  whole  estimate  of 
the  value  of  human  pursuits.  The  plan  of  life  commendable 
in  a  passage-ship  may  be  questionable  in  a  settled  home ;  and 
the  proceedings  of  an  army  on  the  eve  of  battle  are  not  like 
the  habits  of  the  same  people  tilling  their  fields  and  sitting  at 
their  hearths.  To  apply  to  a  permanently  constituted  planet 
the  rules  promulgated  to  preserve  discipline  amid  a  general 
breaking-up,  is  surely  an  eccentric  kind  of  legislation.  Yet 
by  just  such  a  process  have  modern  churches  derived  a  num- 
ber of  ethical  extravagances  offensive  to  the  eye  of  chastened 
conscience,  and  condemned  by  their  impracticability  to  the  in- 
sincere existence  of  perpetual  talk.  The  manner  in  which 


THE    ETHICS    OF   CHRISTENDOM.  321 

English  divines  conduct  themselves  towards  this  error  of  the 
first  century  appears  to  us  not  simple  and  ingenuous.  Some 
still  affect  to  deny  it,  and  to  treat  its  reiterated  assertion  as  a 
mere  perverseness  and  impudence  of  heresy ;  yet  they  leave 
the  statement  without  serious  refutation,  though  well  aware 
that  the  weight  of  critical  authority  is  altogether  in  its  favor, 
and  though  avowing  their  own  theory  of  revelation  absolutely 
to  require  that  it  be  false.  Others  incidentally  and  grudgingly 
admit  it,  and  then  pass  on  as  if  nothing  had  happened  ;  imme- 
diately relapsing  into  the  same  authoritative  appeal  to  Scrip- 
ture, the  same  direct  and  mechanical  use  of  its  precepts,  the 
same  assumption  of  it  as  an  instrument  yielding  on  interpre- 
tation nothing  but  truth,  which  had  been  habitual  with  them 
before  their  eyes  were  opened.  Now,  if  anything  be  certain 
on  such  a  matter,  it  is  that  to  suppose  one's  self  in  the  world's 
last  year,  —  the  admission  paid  to  the  panorama  of  judgment 
and  the  spectacle  only  waiting  to  begin,  —  is  no  small  and 
sleepy  idea,  which  might  ineffectually  turn  up  now  and  then, 
and  sink  back  below  the  surface  without  further  trace.  A 
man  who  could  live  in  presence  of  such  a  vision,  and  not  carry 
its  crimsoned  light  upon  every  object  that  fixed  his  eye,  could 
be  no  apostle  of  truth  or  preacher  of  earnestness ;  nor  do  we 
know  that  anything  more  contemptuous  could  be  said  of  him 
than  that,  no  doubt,  he  held  such  an  expectation,  but  it  was  of 
no  consequence.  To  convert  the  author  of  the  Pauline  Epis- 
tles into  a  dilettante  believer  of  the  pattern  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  say  of  his  most  tremendous  gleams  of  thought 
that  they  were  but  transitory  fireworks  which  meant  nothing, 
is  no  less  an  offence  against  his  character  than  a  misunder- 
standing of  his  writings ;  and  we  conceive  that,  in  affirming 
the  deep  penetration  of  his  mistaken  world-view  into  the  sub- 
stance of  his  monitory  teaching,  we  shall  be  vindicating  the 
fundamental  veracity  and  noble  clearness  of  his  soul. 

To  exhibit  the  Christology  of  the  Apostles  with  the  fulness 
necessary  for  tracing  pseudo-Christian  morality  to  its  origin, 
would  require  a  volume.  We  can  only  advert  to  one  or  two 
points,  indicating  the  direction  which  such  an  inquiry  would 


322  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

take.  It  is  admitted  on  all  hands,  that  a  second  advent  of 
Christ  is  announced  in  almost  every  book  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;  that,  if  we  except  the  Gospel  of  John,  it  is  spoken  of 
invariably  as  a  real,  personal  return,  an  objective  and  scenic 
event,  to  be  seen,  heard,  and  felt ;  and  cannot  be  explained 
away  into  a  spiritual  access  to  the  world,  or  a  subjective 
drama  in  the  soul  of  disciples.  It  is  further  admitted,  that 
with  this  advent  are  integrally  connected  many  incidents 
which,  however  difficult  to  group  into  a  complete  picture,  con- 
stitute, under  every  variety  of  possible  arrangement,  a  final 
consummation  of  human  affairs.  Indeed,  the  article  in  the 
Creed  which  declares  that  Christ  "shall  come  to  judge  the 
quick  and  the  dead,  and  at  his  coming  all  men  shall  rise  again 
with  their  bodies  and  shall  give  account  for  their  own  works," 
shows  how  the  Church  understands  the  doctrine,  and  conjoins 
the  end  of  the  world  with  the  advent.  The  nature  of  the 
event  being  so  far  undisputed,  the  question  which  separates 
the  mass  of  scientific  interpreters  from  the  popular  expounder, 
refers  only  to  its  date.  The  Apostle  Paul,  it  is  urged  by  the 
critics,  writes  to  his  Thessalonian  converts,  in  answer  to  a 
distressing  doubt  which  could  have  no  existence  but  in  minds 
on  the  watch  for  the  return  of  Christ;  and  his  answer,  far 
from  checking  this  outlook,  raised  it  to  such  intensity  that,  to 
soothe  their  excitement,  he  wrote  to  them  again  to  remove  the 
event  from  the  immediate  foreground  of  their  imagination ; 
yet  even  then  detained  it  quite  within  the  limits  of  their  nat- 
ural lives,  and,  simply  interposing  one  or  two  signals  of  its 
approach  that  had  not  yet  appeared,  counselled  them  not  to 
lose  their  composure,  but  maintain  a  "patient  waiting  for 
Christ."  The  original  doubt  which  had  disturbed  them  seems 
to  have  been  one  instructively  characteristic  of  the  early  the- 
ocratic faith.  Some  member  of  the  community  had  died  ;  his 
friends,  in  addition  to  their  natural  sorrow,  were  apparently 
taken  by  surprise,  that,  after  enrolment  among  the  citizens  of 
the  approaching  kingdom,  he  was  taken  from  their  side,  and 
would  not  be  with  them  when  they  hailed  the  arrival  of  Christ. 
What  would  become  of  him  ?  They  thought  he  would  have 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  323 

to  remain  in  his  sleep  till  Messiah  should  exercise  his  func- 
tion of  raising  the  dead,  which  was  not  to  be  at  first ;  and  so, 
during  the  great  crisis,  and  for  an  uncertain  continuance  be- 
yond, he  would  linger  behind  the  privilege  which  they  enjoyed. 
This  seems,  at  first  sight,  a  strange  subject  of  distress.  That 
the  second  advent  should  take  place  in  the  presence  of  the 
living  only,  and  should  leave  the  dead  without  part  or  lot  in 
the  matter,  is  so  completely  at  variance  with  the  picture  which 
nas  become  fixed  in  the  common  Christian  imagination,  that 
scruples  may  readily  be  felt  about  attributing  so  mutilated  a 
conception  to  the  Thessalonian  church.  The  commonly  re- 
ceived picture,  however,  is  made  up  of  elements  incongruously 
brought  together  from  several  Scripture  writers,  to  whom  the 
expected  event  presented  itself  under  different  aspects ;  and 
nowhere  can  they  be  found  combined  into  such  a  whole  as  the 
ecclesiastical  faith  represents.  To  understand  and  account  for 
the  Thessalonian  state  of  mind,  we  have  only  to  read  over  the 
24th  and  25th  chapters  of  St.  Matthew,  and  to  surrender  our- 
selves to  the  images  there  presented,  without  adding  anything 
of  our  own.  These  chapters  contain  the  fullest  description  of 
the  advent,  the  last  judgment,  and  the  end  of  the  world,  that 
can  be  found  in  Scripture  ;  yet  the  dead  are  not  brought  upon 
the  scene  at  all,  nor  is  any  resurrection  found  among  its  ele- 
ments. The  whole  idea  is  evidently  of  a  return  of  the  Son 
of  Man,  within  the  limits  of  a  generation,  to  take  account,  in 
his  theocratic  capacity,  of  the  very  persons  who  had  known 
him  hi  his  Galilean  humiliation  and  disguise,  —  of  those  who, 
having  joined  him  in  his  days  of  trial,  had  been  intrusted  by 
him  with  the  administration  hi  the  interval  of  his  heavenly 
absence,  —  and  of  those  who,  after  rejecting  him  personally, 
had  hardened  themselves  no  less  against  the  preaching  and 
overtures  of  his  subsequent  ambassadors.  The  nations  gath- 
ered before  him  are  furnished  from  the  surviving  population 
of  the  earth  ;  and  the  ground  of  their  admittance  or  rejection 
is  the  reception  they  have  given  to  Messiah  in  the  persons  of 
his  missionaries  and  representatives.  In  supposing  the  dead 
to  have  lost  their  chance  of  participating  hi  this  scene,  the 


324  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

Thessalonians  did  but  paint  it  to  themselves  as  Christ,  accord- 
ing to  the  first  Gospel,  had  described  it  to  his  hearers.  Their 
misgiving  plainly  assumes  that  the  advent  was  sure  for  the 
living  and  was  lost  for  the  dead.  The  Apostle  answers  by 
denying  the  distinction,  and  putting  both  classes  into  the  same 
condition  ere  the  great  hour  strikes:  but  what  condition? 
Does  he  say  that  the  living  will  die  first?  No;  but  that  the 
dead  will  live  first :  so  that  the  departed  companion  will  come, 
back  at  the  right  moment  for  mingling  with  the  troop  of 
friends  that  shall  go  "to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air."  The 
game  order  of  events  is  given  in  the  sublime,  but  little  under- 
stood, chapter  on  the  resurrection  in  the  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  where  the  Apostle  places  himself,  at  the  advent, 
not  among  "  the  dead "  that  "  shall  be  raised  incorruptible," 
but  among  the  survivors  that  "  shall  be  changed  "  into  immor- 
tals without  ever  quitting  life.  It  is  a  topic  of  praise  to  the 
disciples  at  Corinth  that  they  are  "  waiting  for  the  coming  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  shall  also  confirm  you  unto  the 
end,  that  ye  may  be  blameless  in  the  day  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ"  He  assures  'his  Philippian  friends  that  "  the  Lord  is 
at  hand,"  and  prays  that  they  may  "  be  sincere  and  without 
offence  till  the  day  of  Christ."  Having  come  out  safe  from 
his  examination  and  hearing  at  Rome,  he  avows  his  persua- 
sion that  he  will  be  similarly  delivered  "from  every  evil 
work,"  and  preserved  unto  Christ's  heavenly  kingdom.  Though 
amid  his  toils  and  weariness  he  earnestly  desired  to  be  en- 
dowed with  his  immortal  frame,  —  to  be  invested,  as  he  ex- 
presses it,  with  his  house  from  above ;  yet  he  was  unwilling 
to  put  off  the  corruptible,  till  he  could  put  on  the  incorruptible  ; 
he  would  have  his  mortality  "  swallowed  up  of  life  " ;  he  did 
not  wish  the  great  hour  to  find  him  naked,  but  clothed,  not, 
that  is,  a  disembodied  spirit,  but  a  living  man.  He  stands  at 
the  era  on  which  "  the  end  of  the  world  has  come  "  ;  and  begs 
his  correspondents  to  let  certain  existing  disputes  lie  over,  and 
to  "judge  nothing  before  the  time  until  the  Lord  come."  Not 
-less  explicit  evidence  is  afforded  in  the  writings  of  other  Apos- 
tles. James  says,  "  The  coming  of  the  Lord  draweth  nigh  ; . . . . 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  325 

behold,  the  Judge  standeth  before  the  door."  Peter,  "The 
end  of  all  things  is  at  hand."  John,  "  Children,  it  is  the  last 
time ;  and  as  ye  have  heard  that  Antichrist  shall  come,  even 
now  are  there  many  Antichrists ;  whereby  we  know  that  it  is 
the  last  time."  If  the  author  of  Christianity  did  not  himself 
entertain  the  same  expectation  of  an  early  return  to  assume 
his  Messianic  prerogatives,  he  has  been  greatly  misrepresented 
by  his  biographers.  For  though  one  of  them  represents  him 
as  disclaiming  a  knowledge  of  the  specific  "  day  and  hour " 
appointed  for  his  "  coming  in  the  clouds  with  great  power  and 
glory,"  the  disclaimer  follows  immediately  on  his  announce- 
ment, that  at  all  events  it  will  take  place  within  the  existing 
generation.  Does  any  reader  doubt  whether  this  "  coming  in 
the  clouds  "  really  describes  the  judgment?  or  whether  "  this 
generation  "  denotes  the  natural  term  of  human  life  ?  Both 
questions  are  answered  at  once  in  Matthew's  report  of  a  single 
sentence,  which  simultaneously  defines  the  event  and  its  date  : 
"  For  the  Son  of  Man  shall  come  in  the  glory  of  his  Father, 
with  his  angels  ;  and  then  he  shall  reward  every  man  accord- 
ing to  his  icorks.  Verily  I  say  unto  .you,  there  be  some  stand- 
ing here  which  shall  not  taste  of  death,  till  they  see  the  Son  of 
Man  coming  in  his  kingdom."  It  is  certainly  possible  enough 
that  the  discourses  in  which  these  expressions  occur  may  be 
incorrectly  reported,  and  have  acquired  from  the  writer's  state 
of  mind  a  definiteness  not  belonging  to  the  original  production. 
But,  at  any  rate,  they  reveal  the  historian's  conception  of  what 
was  in  Jesus's  thought ;  and  the  false  coloring  of  expectation 
which  they  threw  over  his  prophecies  could  not  fail  to  extend 
in  their  reports  to  his  preceptive  discourses,  and  thus  to  have 
almost  the  same  influence  on  the  recorded  Christian  ethics,  as 
if  the  error  were  his  as  well  as  theirs. 

The  evidence  on  this  point  is  so  positive  and  overwhelming, 
that  critics  such  as  Olshausen,  whose  testimony  is  undoubtedly 
reluctant,  no  longer  think  of  resisting  it.  Nothing,  indeed, 
can  be  opposed  to  it  but  a  kind  of  interpretation  which  is  the 
opprobrium  of  English  theology ;  and  whose  problem  is,  not 
-simply  to  gather  an  author's  thought  from  his  words,  but  from 
28 


326  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

among  all  true  thoughts  to  find  the  one  that  will  sit  the  least 
uneasily  under  his  words.  Thus  "  the  end  of  all  things  "  is 
explained  away  into  the  founding  of  the  Christian  Church ; 
the  "  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  on  the  clouds  of  heaven,"  in- 
to the  Jewish  war  under  Titus ;  the  last  judgment,  which 
"  rewards  every  man  according  to  his  works,"  into  the  escape 
of  the  Christians  and  the  slaughter  of  the  Jewish  zealots  at 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  No  doubt,  many  good  and  well- 
instructed  men  have  persuaded  themselves  that  by  such  ex- 
egetical  sleight  of  hand  they  could  save  Apostolic  and  other 
infallibility.  We  can  only  say,  that  when  piety  supplies  the 
motive,  and  learning  the  means,  for  bewildering  veracity  of 
apprehension,  two  rich  and  noble  endowments  are  spent  in 
corrupting  a  nobler,  which  is  the  life  of  them  both. 

To  the  moral  sentiments  which  should  occupy  the  soul,  it 
may  make  little  difference  how  long  the  world  is  to  last.  But 
to  the  course  of  action  which  should  engage  the  hand,  it  is  a 
matter  of  primary  moment.  All  human  occupations  rest  on 
the  assumption  of  permanence  in  the  constitution  of  things ; 
nor  is  it  less  true  of  a  planet  than  of  a  farm,  that  mere  ten- 
ants at  will,  unsecured  by  lease  and  even  served  already  with 
notice  to  quit,  will  undertake  no  improvements,  and  will  suffer 
the  culture  to  decline  to  the  lowest  point.  What  profession 
could  remain  respectable  if  society  had  no  future  ?  What 
interest  would  attach  to  the  administration  of  law,  on  behalf 
of  property  which  was  not  worth  six  months'  purchase,  and 
life  which,  stripped  of  survivorship,  had  lost  all  sacredness  to 
the  affections  ?  Who  would  sit  down  to  study  the  Pharmaco- 
poeia on  board  a  sinking  ship  ?  What  zeal  could  be  felt  by 
the  statesman  or  general  in  repelling  from  his  country  an  in- 
jury that  could  never  be  repeated,  or  removing  a  grievance  on 
the  point  of  supernatural  death  ?  The  fields  would  scarce  be 
tilled  which  the  angels  with  flaming  sword  might  come  to  reap  ; 
or  the  vineyards  be  dressed  in  sight  of  him  "  who  treadeth  the 
wine-press  alone."  All  the  crafts  of  industry,  all  the  adven- 
tures of  commerce,  are  held  together  by  a  given  element  of 
time, ;  and,  when  deprived  of  this,  fall  away  into  inanity.  No 


THE    ETHICS    OF    C1IK1STENDOM.  327 

one  would  build  a  house  on  ice  melting  with  hidden  fires ;  or 
freight  ships  over  an  ocean  which  earthquakes  were  to  drain 
away ;  or  fabricate  silks  and  patent-leather  for  appearance  at 
the  last  tribunal.  And  the  loosened  hold  of  these  pursuits 
upon  human  zeal,  so  far  from  implying  their  exchange  for 
anything  higher  and  more  spiritual,  involves  the  direct  reverse. 
They  cannot  be  abandoned ;  the  stern  punctuality  of  hunger, 
the  peremptoriness  of  instinctive  or  habitual  want,  compel 
their  continuance;  and  Paul  himself  made  sail-cloth  for  a 
world  on  its  last  voyage.  But  they  are  kept  up  only  because 
there  is  no  help  for  it ;  they  sink  into  mere  bread-trades  ;  and 
are  thrown  back  many  stages  from  the  tranquil  human  towards 
the  grim  cannibal  level.  All  work  in  this  world,  no  doubt, 
rests  at  bottom  on  the  elementary  animal  requirements  of  our 
nature ;  but  it  is  then  most  worthily  performed,  not  when  these 
requirements  are  most  obtrusive,  but  when  they  are  most 
withdrawn.  It  is  the  specific  moral  benefit  which  social  or- 
ganization confers  upon  man,  that  it  enables  him  to  retreat 
from  the  constant  presence  of  sheer  necessity,  and  stand  at  a 
sufficient  distance  from  it  to  allow  other  and  higher  feelings 
to  connect  themselves  with  his  industry.  It  is  a  lower  thing 
to  consult  for  the  natural  wants  of  primitive  appetite,  than  for 
the  artificial  love  of  order,  neatness,  security,  and  beauty ;  and 
a  craftsman  works  in  a  better  spirit  when  earning  some  un- 
necessary gift  for  his  wife  or  child,  than  when  toiling  for  the 
bitter  loaf  that  staves  off  starvation.  An  art  prosecuted  with- 
out pride  in  its  ingenuity,  without  intellectual  enlistment  in  its 
methods  of  skill,  is  degraded  from  an  instrument  of  discipline 
into  a  prowling  for  food,  —  from  a  mode  of  life  into  a  make- 
shift against  death.  To  take  away  the  future,  therefore,  from 
secular  pursuits,  is  simply  to  draw  off  from  them  whatever 
redeems  them  from  meanness  ;  to  plant  them  in  greedy  isola- 
tion, as  mere  personal  necessities ;  and  cut  them  off  from  the 
great  human  system  which  lends  to  them  a  color  of  nobleness 
and  dignity.  Among  the  early  Christians  this  tendency  was 
greatly  checked  by  the  fresh  aims  and  employments  which 
their  religion  created ;  and  in  devotion  to  which  the  more  en- 


328  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

thusiastic  spirits  found  ample  scope  for  their  affections.  The 
Church,  subsisting  like  an  intrenched  camp  in  a  hostile  land, 
had  to  make  sallies  in  all  directions  for  rescue  of  the  wander- 
ing, and  for  captives  to  the  faith.  An  aggressive  activity  of 
compassion  and  conviction  found  tasks  for  the  energies  disen- 
gaged from  secular  pursuits ;  and  the  new  relations  into  which 
their  religious  profession  threw  them  towards  the  synagogue, 
the  magistrate,  the  Pagan  worshipper,  supplied  them  with 
continual  problems  of  conscience,  severe,  but  wholesome  to  the 
mind.  So  peculiar,  indeed,  was  their  position,  that,  even  if 
they  had  reckoned  on  a  continuance  of  human  affairs,  they 
could  hardly,  perhaps,  have  mingled  much  with  a  world  that 
drew  them  with  such  slender  sympathies.  Separated  in  ideas 
and  affections,  they  must  in  any  case  have  created  a  new  and 
detached  centre  of  social  life.  Still  it  is  undeniable  that  their 
isolation  was  favored  and  exaggerated  by  their  faith  in  an  ap- 
proaching end  of  all  things ;  and  that  they  withdrew  from 
human  interests,  not  simply  because  honorable  contact  with 
them  was  impossible,  but  because  they  were  taught  entire  in- 
difference to  them  as  elements  of  a  perishing  system.  Not 
only  is  no  recognition  given  to  the  pursuit  of  art  and  letters, 
and  the  citizen's  duty  presented  only  on  the  passive  side;  but 
even  the  relations  of  domestic  life  ai'e  discouraged,  and  the 
slave  is  dissuaded  from  care  about  his  liberty,  on  the  express 
ground  that  it  is  not  worth  while,  on  the  brink  of  a  great  ca- 
tastrophe, to  assume  any  new  position,  or  commit  the  heart  by 
new  ties.  The  time  is  too  short,  the  crisis  too  near,  for  the 
career  of  a  free  life,  or  the  building  of  a  human  home.  It  is 
better  for  every  one  to  continue  as  he  is ;  and  instead  of  wait- 
ing to  have  the  world  perish  from  him,  to  regard  himself  as 
already  dead  to  the  world.  To  stand  impassive  and  alone, 
neutral  to  joy  or  sorrow,  with  soul  intent  on  the  future,  and 
disengaged  from  impediments  of  the  past,  earnest  to  keep 
bright  on  its  watch-tower  the  beacon  of  faith,  but  resolute  to 
descend  no  more  into  the  plain  below,  appeared  to  the  Apostle 
Paul  the  highest  wisdom.  And  how  could  it  be  otherwise? 
Seen  from  his  point  of  view,  all  temporal  claims  sank  into 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  329 

negation.  The  constitutions,  the  arts,  the  culture,  of  civilized 
nations  were  about  to  be  superseded ;  and  the  Christians  who 
had  already  retired  from  them  needed  no  new  ones  to  take 
their  place,  except  such  provisional  arrangements  as  might 
serve  during  the  world's  brief  respite.  Equally  natural  and 
suitable  to  their  conceived  position  were  the  non-resistance 
principles  of  the  early  disciples.  What  right  could  be  worth 
contending  for  on  the  dawn  of  a  great  day  of  redress,  when 
every  wrong  would  be  brought  to  its  account  ?  Who  would 
carry  a  cause  before  Dikast  or  Proconsul  to  day,  when  Eter- 
nal Justice  was  pledged  to  hear  it  to-morrow  ?  Who  refuse 
to  resign  to  human  coercion  what  a  retributive  Omnipotence 
would  soon  restore  ?  When  the  great  assizes  of  the  universe 
are  about  to  be  opened,  it  were  a  poor  thing  for  the  suitors  to 
begin  fighting  in  the  vestibule.  In  all  these  respects  the  prac- 
tical code  of  the  Apostolic  age  was  inevitably  influenced  by 
the  mistaken  world-view  prevalent  in  the  Church.  For  the 
plaintiff,  the  hour  was  fixed  when  his  suit  would  be  called ;  for 
the  slave,  the  emancipation-day  was  declared ;  and  from  him 
that  bound  himself  in  heart  to  the  past,  the  past  was  about  to 
be  snatched  away.  The  rules  of  action  dictated  by  these  no- 
tions are  mere  accidents  of  the  first  age,  —  correct  deductions 
from  a  misconceived  system  of  external  relations.  They  are 
wholly  dependent  on  this  misconception,  and  have  no  neces- 
sary connection  with  the  interior  spirit,  the  characteristic  sen- 
timents and  affections  which  distinguish  Christianity  as  a  re- 
ligion. If  the  Apostles  had  lived  on  till  their  mistake  had 
worn  itself  out,  and  they  had  discovered  the  permanence  of  the 
world,  —  had  they  postponed  all  writing  of  Scripture  till  this 
lesson  of  experience  had  been  learned,  —  we  apprehend  that 
their  scheme  of  applied  morals  would  have  been  very  differ- 
ent ;  a  more  genial  recognition  would  have  been  given  to  nat- 
ural human  relations  ;  the  social  facts  of  property  and  govern- 
ment, the  private  concerns  of  education  and  self-culture,  the 
personal  responsibilities  of  genius  and  intellect,  would  have 
been  less  slightingly  dismissed,  and  reduced  to  clear  moral 
order ;  and  the  sentences  would  have  been  greatly  modified 
28* 


330  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

which  now  support  the  delusions  of  the  improvident,  the  ascet- 
ic, the  exclusive,  and  the  non-resisting.  Unhappily,  Apostles 
do  not  live  for  ever,  so  that  we  are  denied  that  chance ;  and 
successors  of  Apostles,  though  seldom  scarce,  are  not  a  helpful 
race,  being  chiefly  marks  of  an  absent  inspiration.  The  task, 
therefore,  of  applying  the  essential  Christian  sentiments  to  a 
permanent  world,  —  though  avowedly  undertaken  by  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church,  —  remains  unperformed ;  and  instead  of 
it  we  have,  in  the  common  Protestantism,  a  violent  misappli- 
cation to  human  nature  and  all  time  of  the  accidents  and  er- 
rors of  the  first  age,  resulting,  we  fear,  in  a  caricature  injuri- 
ous alike  to  that  first  age  itself,  and  to  all  true  apprehension  of 
the  nature  and  proportions  of  human  duty. 

Expressions  abound  in  the  literature  of  modern  Christen- 
dom implying  an  antithesis  between  temporal  and  spiritual 
things,  between  morality  and  religion,  between  the  world  and 
God.  No  one  can  fail  to  observe  that  this  antithesis,  whether 
founded  in  reality  or  not,  has  become  a  social  fact.  There  are 
two  standards  of  judgment  extant  for  the  estimate  of  charac- 
ter and  life ;  one  set  up  in  the  pulpit,  the  other  recognized  in 
the  forum  and  the  street.  The  former  gives  the  order  in 
which  we  pretend,  and  perhaps  ineffectually  try,  to  admire 
men  and  things  ;  the  latter,  that  in  which  we  do  admire  them. 
Under  the  influence  of  the  one,  the  merchant  or  the  country 
gentleman  is  professedly  in  love  with  the  innocent  improvi- 
dence of  the  ravens  and  the  lilies ;  relapsing  into  the  other, 
be  sells  all  his  cotton  in  expectation  of  a  fall,  or  drains  his 
farms  for  a  rise  of  rent.  On  the  Sunday,  he  applauds  it  as  a 
saintly  thing  to  present  the  patient  cheek  to  the  smiter ;  on 
the  Monday,  he  listens  with  rapture  to  Kossuth's  curse  upon 
the  house  of  Hapsburg,  and  the  Magyar  vow  of  resistance 
to  the  death.  He  assents  when  the  Apostle  John  is  held  up 
to  his  veneration  as  the  beloved  disciple,  but,  if  the  truth  were 
known,  the  Duke  of  Wellington  is  rather  more  to  his  mind. 
Supposing  it  all  true  that  is  said  about  the  vanity  of  earthly 
pleasures  and  ostentations,  he  nevertheless  lets  his  daughters 
send  out  next  day  invitations  to  a  grand  ball,  and  makes  his 


THE    ETHICS    OP    CHRISTENDOM.  331 

house  busy  with  dress-makers  and  cooks.  He  is  accustomed 
to  confess  that  in  him  there  is  no  good  thing,  and  that  all  his 
thoughts  and  works  are  only  evil  continually  ;  yet  he  is  pleased 
with  himself  that  he  has  pi-ovided  for  the  family  of  his  gar- 
dener who  was  killed  on  the  railway  last  week.  In  these  and 
a  thousand  other  forms  may  be  noticed  the  competition  be- 
tween two  coexisting  and  unreconciled  standards,  the  relations 
between  which  are  altogether  confused  and  uneasy.  Whoever 
is  interested  in  following  up  the  genealogy  of  ideas,  and  would 
search  for  the  origin  of  this  mixed  and  mischievous  state  of 
mind,  must  look  first  to  the  influence  of  Luther,  and  thence  to 
the  Pauline  doctrine,  which  he  improperly  generalized  and 
exaggerated.  We  will  endeavor  to  trace  the  development  of 
the  sentiment  in  the  opposite  direction,  from  the  ancient  germ 
to  the  modern  fruit. 

Paul  the  Apostle  proclaimed  Faith  to  be  the  condition  of 
regeneration  and  acceptance.  To  appreciate  this  message  of 
his,  we  must  remember  two  things ;  —  namely,  (1 .)  what  it 
was  from  which  men  were  to  be  rescued  on  these  terms ;  (2.) 
what  other  conditions  had  been  elsewhere  insisted  on  instead 
of  this,  and  were  put  aside  by  Paul  in  favor  of  this.  Now 
enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  what  he  feared  for  the 
world  which  he  labored  to  convert  was,  primarily,  exclusion 
from  the  theocratic  empire  which  Messiah  would  return  to 
erect ;  nor  is  it  clear  what  ulterior  consequences,  if  any,  he 
conceived  this  exclusion  to  carry  with  it.  This  banishment 
was  the  negative  of  that  "  salvation  "  to  which  the  disciples 
were  called ;  and  which  consisted  in  their  registration  as  qual- 
ified citizens  of  the  kingdom  for  which  the  earth  was  about  to 
be  claimed.  The  picture  before  his  mind  was  so  far  altogether 
Jewish ;  not  at  all  the  modern  idea  of  heaven  and  hell,  — 
spiritual  regions  to  which  individuals,  one  by  one,  pass  after 
death  for  moral  retribution ;  but  a  terrestrial  scene,  the  wind- 
ing up  of  history,  affecting  men  in  masses,  and  completing 
the  purpose  for  which  God  had  created  this  world.  While, 
however,  the  thought  of  the  Apostle's  mind  was  national,  the 
compass  of  his  heart  was  human ;  and  as  the  hour  drew  nigh, 


332  THE    ETHICS    OP   CHRISTENDOM. 

he  felt  that  the  future  could  not  be  closed  upon  the  great  Gen- 
tile world ;  that  his  own  people  were  not  so  sublime  a  race  as 
to  have  the  issues  of  Providence  all  to  themselves ;  that  he 
must  get  rid  of  their  conceited  pedigrees,  and  let  the  Divine 
plan,  which  for  a  while  had  narrowed  its  original  universality 
within  the  current  of  Hebrew  history,  flow  out  at  its  end  into 
the  full  breadth  of  its  first  scope.  But  if  so,  a  new  qualifica- 
tion must  be  found  ;  one  open  alike  to  Hebrew  and  to  alien, 
yet  nursing  the  pride  of  neither.  These  requisites  are  ful- 
filled in  simple  Faith,  which,  as  a  catholic  possibility  of  every 
human  heart,  Paul  substitutes  for  prescriptive  rights  and  un- 
tenable merits.  It  was  the  only  condition  which  there  was 
time  to  realize.  To  insist  instead  on  a  mere  moral  fitness,  on 
a  character  of  mind  suitable  to  meet  the  eye  of  infinite  purity, 
would  be  a  mockery  in  a  state  of  society  at  once  decrepit  and 
corrupt  The  hour  pressed  :  it  was  not  the  case  of  a  young 
and  fresh  generation,  that  might  be  brought  back,  by  heedful 
training,  to  the  sanctities  of  nature  and  conscience ;  but  an 
old  and  callous  world,  that  could  do  little  for  itself,  had  to  be 
got  ready  in  hot  haste.  A  kindled  enthusiasm,  a  new  alle- 
giance, a  resurrection  of  sleeping  reverences,  is  the  only  hope. 
Once  fix  the  gaze  of  faith,  the  simplicity  of  trust,  on  the  Di- 
vine Human  Being,  who,  having  been  clad  in  the  sorrows  of 
this  earth,  waits  to  bring  in  its  everlasting  peace ;  and  this 
affection  alone,  comprehending  in  it  every  lesser  purity,  will 
soften  even  arid  natures,  and  enrich  them  with  forgotten  fer- 
tility and  grace.  Preach  your  moral  gymnastics  to  a  school 
of  young  heroes,  whose  soul  is  noble  and  whose  limbs  are 
free  ;  but  at  the  baths  of  Baije,  amid  paralytics  that  drag  the 
foot,  and  cripples  with  worn-out  bodies  and  halting  wills,  if  you 
cannot  touch  the  spring  of  faith,  you  may  spare  your  pedantic 
rules  of  exercise.  Thus  the  Apostle's  demand  of  faith  was  a 
generous  stimulant  of  hope  and  recovery  to  an  invalided 
world,  whose  natural  forces  were  broken,  and  which  had  but 
little  time  for  restoration.  It  was  a  provision  for  pouring  a 
mountain-breath  of  healing  reverence  upon  the  sickly  souls 
and  languid  levels  of  this  world.  It  was  an  attempt  to  meet 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  333 

a  quick  emergency,  and,  by  an  intense  action,  condense  the 
powers  of  preparation.  It  was  therefore  an  expression,  not  of 
the  narrowness,  but  of  the  universality  of  the  Gospel.  It 
shows  the  great  heart  of  the  religion  bursting  bounds,  and  the 
strong  hand  of  its  noblest  servant  tugging  at  the  gates  to  get 
them  open,  grinding  off  the  rust  of  tradition  and  crushing  the 
scrupulous  gravel  of  obstruction. 

The  doctrine,  however,  assumes  quite  a  different  significance 
when  snatched  by  Luther  out  of  its  historical  connection,  and 
held  valid  as  a  sufficient  theory  of  human  nature,  and  its  only 
possibility  of  religion.  The  palsy  of  will,  the  incapacity  of 
self-cure,  the  hopeless  moral  prostration  into  which  long  cor- 
ruption had  brought  the  world,  as  it  lay  beneath  the  eye  of 
Paul,  Luther  assumes  as  the  normal  condition  of  the  soul,  and 
treats  as  a  congenital  incompetency  of  faculty,  instead  of  a 
contracted  depravity  of  state.  Not  that  he  disowns  the  hu- 
man will  as  an  executive  power,  or  denies  it  a  sphere  of  oper- 
ation. It  can  go  forth  variously  into  action,  —  can  do  what, 
in  the  view  of  mankind,  is  better  or  worse,  —  can  commit  a 
murder  or  can  rescue  from  it ;  but  in  these  outward  doings, 
however  differently  they  affect  men,  there  is  no  real  good  or 
evil ;  in  the  supreme  view  they  are  neutral  automatic  exhi- 
bitions, simply  physical  as  a  flash  of  lightning  or  a  fall  of  rain ; 
their  real  character  all  lies  in  the  inner  spiritual  springs  from 
which  they  issue  in  the  soul:  on  these  alone  is  the  infinite 
gaze  fixed ;  and  these  are  turbid  all  through,  and  all  alike, 
with  the  taint  and  poison  of  a  ruined  nature.  As  all  natural 
actions  derive  an  equal  guilt  from  the  impurity  of  their  source, 
so,  when  the  source  is  purified,  is  the  guilt  equally  removed 
from  all ;  whilst  nothing  which  the  unconverted  may  do  can 
please  God,  nothing  that  is  performed  in  faith  can  come  amiss 
to  him.  Be  it  what  men  call  crime  or  what  they  praise  as 
virtue,  it  makes  no  difference  if  only  it  be  done  in  faith. 
Furnished  with  this  supernatural  charm,  the  believer  may 
pass  through  any  mire  and  come  out  clean. 

"  A  Christian  cannot,  if  he  will,  lose  his  salvation  by  any 
multitude  or  magnitude  of  sins,  unless  he  ceases  to  believe. 


334  THE    ETHICS    OF   CHRISTENDOM. 

For  no  sins  can  damn  him,  but  unbelief  alone.  Everything 
else,  provided  his  faith  returns  or  stands  fast  in  the  Divine 
promise  given  in  baptism,  is  absorbed  in  a  moment  by  that 
faith."* 

Here  is  a  conception  of  faith  altogether  distinct  from  Paul's. 
It  is  here  no  act  of  reverential  enthusiasm  and  affection,  no 
kindred  movement  of  the  soul  towards  an  object  beautiful  and 
holy,  but  a  mere  willingness  to  trust  a  verbal  assurance  of 
atonement,  —  a  willingness,  moreover,  itself  foreign  to  the 
mind,  and  superinduced  as  an  unnatural  state  by  special  gift. 
Nor  is  its  efficacy  to  be  sought  in  its  transforming  power  on 
man,  but  in  its  persuasiveness  with  God.  It  does  not  ennoble 
anything  that  is  the  worshipper's  own,  but  simply  hangs  on  to 
it  externally  the  compensating  sanctity  of  another ;  it  is,  in- 
deed, described  by  Luther  as  the  mere  vessel  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  believer,  and  charged  with  the  treasures  of 
Christ's  obedience,  —  treasures  so  acceptable  that  they  charm 
away  the  foulness,  and  prevent  the  rejection,  of  anything  that 
accompanies  them.  Thus  the  effect  of  faith  on  the  disciple  is 
not  to  inspire  him  with  a  God-like  mind,  but  to  prevent  his 
corruptions  being  any  damage  to  him.  By  this  strange  theory, 
both  sin  and  sanctity  are  made  entirely  impersonal  to  man ; 
sin,  by  being  a  transmitted  inability ;  sanctity,  by  being  a  for- 
eign donation  ;  and  his  individual  character  sits  in  the  midst, 
at  a  point  of  spiritual  indifference,  neither  chargeable  with 
the  dark  hue  native  to  its  complexion,  nor  ethereal!  zed  by  the 
veil  of  borrowed  light  which  it  wears  as  a  robe.  No  room  is 
found,  either  in  the  child  of  Adam,  or  in  the  redeemed  of 
Christ,  for  any  responsibility,  any  personal  guilt  or  goodness 
whatsoever.  The  misery  and  deformity  in  which  the  Gospel 
finds  him  is  un-moral,  —  the  mere  scrofula  of  inheritance ; 
the  redemption  into  which  it  lifts  him  is  un-moral,  —  the  mere 
usufruct  of  an  alien  purity :  and  thus  the  whole  business  of 

*  Luther  de  Captivitate,  Bab.  ii.  264.  Comp.  Dispu.  i.  523.  Si  in  fide 
fieri  posset  adulterium,  peccatum  non  esset.  Other  and  yet  more  revolting 
assertions  of  the  same  principle  are  cited  by  Mohle,  in  his  Symbolik,  I.  iii. 
§  16,  whence  these  passages  are  taken. 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  335 

religion  begins  and  ends  without  approaching,  and  without  im- 
proving, any  law  of  conscience  at  all ;  morality  remains  abso- 
lutely cut  off  from  its  contact,  unaffected  by  it  except  in  being 
disowned  and  degraded,  and  losing  the  prestige  of  a  Divine 
authority.  This  consequence  of  his  doctrine  is  not  in  the 
least  disguised  by  Luther,  whose  impetuous  audacity  never 
tires  of  forging  phrases  of  opposite  stamp,  by  which  he  may 
put  the  brand  of  insult  upon  Morals,  and  burn  characters  of 
glory  into  the  brow  of  Religion.  The  latter,  he  again  and 
again  insists,  is  to  be  set  in  the  heavenly  realm  ;  the  former, 
on  the  other  hand,  detained  upon  the  ground ;  the  two  being 
kept  as  absolutely  apart  as  the  sky  from  the  earth,  regarded 
as  not  less  incapable  of  a  common  function  than  light  and 
darkness,  day  and  night.  Do  we  speak  of  faith  and  our  rela- 
tions to  God  ?  then  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  morals,  and 
must  leave  them  behind  lying  on  the  earth.  Do  we  speak  of 
conduct  and  our  relations  with  men  ?  then  we  stop  upon  the 
ground,  and  get  no  nearer  to  heaven  and  its  lights.  The  pro- 
tests of  our  better  nature  against  our  own  shortcomings,  the 
sadness  of  repentance,  and  the  alarms  of  guilt,  so  far  from 
being  confirmed  by  true  religion,  are  shown  to  be  mere  delu- 
sion and  idle  self-torture ;  and  the  conscience  that  can  feel 
such  compunctions  is  a  stupid  ass  struggling  in  the  dust  and 
flats  of  this  world  beneath  a  servile  burden  it  need  never  bear. 
To  trouble  the  heart  with  any  moral  anxieties  or  aspirations  is 
the  most  fatal  act  of  unbelief,  —  a  downright  plunge  from 
heaven  over  the  precipice  of  hell.  The  moral  law  may  rule 
the  body  and  its  members,  but  has  no  right  to  any  allegiance 
from  the  soul.*  In  any  personal  and  historical  estimate  of 
Luther  there  would  be  much  to  say  in  palliation  of  these 
monstrous  positions ;  it  would  be  easy  to  show  their  connec- 
tion with  some  of  the  noblest  characteristics  of  his  genius,  and 
their  antagonism  to  some  of  the  worst  features  of  his  times. 
But  regarded  in  their  influence  on  Christendom,  when  de- 
tached from  their  living  origin,  and  made  the  ground  of  a 
theory  for  the  governance  of  life,  they  can  only  be  lamented 

#  See  Luther's  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  passim. 


336  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

as  an  explosion  of  mischievous  extravagance.  For  in  what 
light  do  they  present  Morality  to  us,  after  stripping  it  of  all 
sacredness  ?  What  ground  is  left  on  which  its  obligation  may 
repose,  and  what  end  is  given  for  its  aim?  It  exists,  as 
Luther  himself  declares,  only  as  a  provision  for  social  order 
and  external  peace.  It  is  not  concerned  with  the  perfection  of 
the  individual,  but  with  the  organization  of  the  world ;  and  is 
nothing  but  the  system  of  rules  and  customs  requisite  for  the 
safe  coexistence  of  many  persons  on  the  same  field.  It  is 
thus  reduced  from  an  inspiration  of  conscience  to  an  affair  of 
police ;  the  private  sentiment  of  duty,  operating  in  the  hidden 
recess  of  life,  keeping  vigils  over  the  temper  of  the  mind  and 
habits  of  the  home,  is  a  mere  substitute  for  public  opinion,  and 
no  representative  of  the  eye  of  God.  In  this  way,  moral 
usages  are  first  voted  into  existence  as  matters  of  convenience, 
and  imposed  by  the  general  voice,  yielding  as  their  product  in 
the  individual  an  artificial  sense  of  obligation  ;  and  it  is  a  de- 
lusion to  invert  this  order,  and  say  that  the  natural  sense  of 
obligation,  inherent  in  each  individual,  creates  by  sympathy 
and  concurrence  the  moral  usages  of  mankind.  This  extreme 
secularization  of  morals  places  Luther  in  curious  company 
with  Hobbes  ;  and  the  followers  of  both  have  not  been  alto- 
gether unfaithful  to  the  original  affinity  of  their  ethical  ideas. 
Both  schools  have  withheld  from  their  conception  of  morality 
any  touch  and  color  of  religion  ;  both  have  been  jealous  of  its 
mingling  itself  much  with  sentiment  and  feeling ;  both  have 
applied  to  it  purely  objective  criteria,  and  regarded  it  as  a 
statutory  affair,  susceptible  of  codification,  and  then  needing 
only  a  logical  interpreter.  This  singular  alliance  between 
sects  regarding  each  other  with  the  greatest  antipathy,  exhib- 
its the  irresistible  tendency  of  a  wholly  super-natural  religion 
to  produce  an  infra-natural  morality. 

The  result  of  this  sharp  separation  of  the  ethical  from  the 
spiritual  province  of  life  is,  that  both  are  deprived  of  elements 
indispensable  to  their  proper  culture.  Our  devout  people  are 
not  remarkable  for  either  clear  notions  or  nice  feelings  on 
moral  questions ;  while  the  conscientious  class  are  apt  to  be 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  337 

dry  and  cold  precisians,  truthful,  trustworthy,  and  humane,  but 
so  little  genial,  so  devoid  of  ideality  and  depth,  that  poet  or 
prophet  is  struck  dumb  before  their  face.  Till  the  two  classes 
had  discovered  their  mutual  alienation  and  collected  them- 
selves round  distinct  standards,  —  evangelical  and  worldly,  — 
the  evil  was  inconspicuous.  For  some  time  after  the  Refor- 
mation, both  coexisted,  without  articulate  repulsion,  in  every 
church,  and  each  silently  qualified  the  other  extreme.  Be- 
sides, in  spite  of  Lutheran  or  other  dogma,  deep  personal 
faith,  grateful  trust  in  such  a  one  as  Christ,  could  not  be 
awakened  in  a  people  into  whom  God,  whatever  they  might 
say  of  themselves,  had  actually  put  a  conscience,  without 
carrying  the  moralities  with  it.  It  might  take  the  liberty  of 
calling  them  "  stupid  ass,"  but  would  nevertheless  object  to 
have  the  ass  abused.  In  truth,  no  sooner  was  the  law  of 
Duty  driven  from  Christianity,  than  the  claim  of  Honor  was 
invoked  to  take  its  place ;  and  the  believer  was  exhorted  not 
to  take  unworthy  advantage  of  his  redemption  from  legal  lia- 
bility, but  to  render  in  thank-offering  the  service  exacted  by 
penalty  no  more ;  worthless  as  it  was,  it  was  all  he  had  to 
give.  Such  appeal  touches  a  spring  powerful  in  noble  hearts, 
and  is,  in  fact,  only  the  awakening  of  a  higher  order  of  moral 
feelings  than  before,  —  a  fetching  back,  under  the  disguise  of 
transfiguration,  of  that  very  sense  of  duty  which  had  been 
professedly  expelled.  In  the  first  enthusiasm  of  faith,  while 
men's  souls,  having  just  flung  off  the  sacerdotal  incubus  of 
centuries,  were  burning  to  breathe  freely,  and  felt  the  healthy 
throb  of  a  new  joy,  this  appeal  would  meet  a  full  response. 
The  doctrine  of  faith  was  but  the  appointed  way  of  bursting 
through  the  miserable  scrupulosities,  the  life  of  petty  debts 
and  casuistic  book-keeping,  by  which  a  priesthood  had  main- 
tained a  balance  against  the  world,  —  of  seizing  a  Divine 
indemnity  and  recovering  the  wholesome  existence  of  devout 
instinct.  If  the  inspiration  of  the  sixteenth  century  could  be 
permanently  maintained,  if  all  men  were  equally  susceptible 
of  being  snatched  up  by  a  whirlwind  of  heavenward  affection, 
if  the  surprise  at  finding  that  the  soul  had  wings  of  its  own 
29 


338  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

could  last  for  ever,  the  principle  of  gratitude  and  pious  honor 
might  answer  every  end,  and  human  duty  be  all  the  better 
done  by  taking  no  security  for  it ;  for  you  may  hurl  as  a  mis- 
sile, in  hot  blood,  a  weight  which  otherwise  you  will  scarce 
drag  upon  the  ground.  But  the  fire  of  an  age  of  Reforma- 
tion cannot  be  permanent;  nor  is  gratitude  an  affection  on 
whose  tension  life  can  be  securely  built ;  —  you  cannot  edu- 
cate people  by  the  force  of  perpetual  surprise.  There  is  a 
large  natural  order  of  minds,  little  susceptible  of  a  self-aban- 
doning fervor,  for  whom  you  vainly  bring  the  chariot  of  fire 
and  horses  of  fire  by  which  prophets  fly  to  heaven,  and  who 
are  content  with  the  humble  mantle  of  the  humanities  thrown 
aside  by  more  daring  spirits  in  their  ascent.  Quiet,  reflective, 
self-balanced  persons  are  not  to  be  taken  by  storm,  and  brought 
to  betray  the  solid  citadel  of  this  world,  and  say  ugly  things 
of  the  moralities  with  which  they  have  lived  in  friendly  neigh- 
borhood. They  are  capable  of  being  led  by  reverence  for 
what  is  better,  but  not  of  being  kindled  by  the  rays  of  what  is 
intenser.  If  they  are  ever  to  be  lifted  into  a  life  beyond  con- 
science, where  reluctance  and  resistance  are  felt  no  more,  and 
the  instincts  of  affection  may  flow  of  their  own  pure  will,  it 
must  be  by  beginning  at  the  other  end,  —  by  the  religious  dis- 
cipline of  conscience,  by  pious  consecration  of  this  earth  and 
its  instant  work,  by  faithful  and  frugal  care  of  the  smaller 
elements  of  duty,  as  of  the  sacred  crumbs  of  eucharistic 
bread,  not  without  a  Real  Presence  in  them.  This  class, 
whose  religion,  by  a  decree  of  their  nature,  can  only  exist  un- 
der ethical  conditions,  are  wholly  unprovided  for  in  the  Prot- 
estant system.  In  the  Lutheran  view  they  belong  to  the 
school  of  worldly  unbelief;  and  though  their  number,  as  must 
be  the  case  in  quiet  times,  has  been  increasing  for  a  century 
and  a  half,  and  constitutes  the  vast  majority  of  educated  peo- 
ple in  this  country,  they  are  without  any  recognized  religion ; 
either  veraciously  disbelieving  and  waiting  for  something  no- 
bly credible,  or  uneasily  subsisting,  suspected  by  clergymen, 
in  the  midst  of  churches  whose  theory  of  life  has  ceased  to  be 
a  reality  to  them.  With  a  faith  traditionally  shy  of  morals, 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  339 

and  morals  not  yet  elevated  into  faith,  we  have  two  separate 
codes  of  life  standing  in  presence  of  each  other,  —  one  relig- 
ious, the  other  secular,  —  and  neither  of  them  with  any  true 
foundation  in  human  nature  as  a  whole ;  the  secular,  an  acci- 
dental congeries  of  mixed  customs  and  inherited  opinions  ; 
the  religious,  the  product  of  an  arbitrary  spiritualism,  lax  and 
ascetic  by  turns. 

It  is  the  peculiarity  of  modern  Christianity  that  these  two 
codes  coexist  within  the  same  social  body,  and  even  rule  over 
different  parts  of  each  individual.  The  Pauline  antithesis 
between  the  world  and  the  Church  was  not  less  sharp  than 
ours ;  but  it  was  a  distinction  of  persons  and  classes,  and  no- 
body could  occupy  both  the  opposite  ends  of  it.  Once  within 
a  society  of  disciples,  he  was  out  of  the  world,  and  belonged 
to  "  the  assembly  of  the  saints  " ;  and  the  whole  realm  of  hea- 
thendom beyond  constituted  the  contrasted  term.  He  did  not 
stand  and  move  with  one  leg  on  holy  ground  and  the  other  on 
the  common  earth ;  whatever  were  the  principles  of  the  com- 
munity he  had  joined,  they  served  him  all  through,  and  did  no 
violence  to  the  unity  of  his  nature.  Praying  or  dining,  weep- 
ing or  laughing,  in  the  workshop  or  the  prison,  he  was  the 
same  man  in  the  same  sphere.  As  the  circle  of  the  Church 
enlarged,  we  should  therefore  expect  the  world  to  be  driven 
to  a  distance,  till  it  was  absent  from  whole  countries  and  con- 
tinents. But  a  new  "  world "  has  been  discovered,  not  only 
within  the  Church,  but  within  the  person  of  every  disciple ; 
his  body  and  limbs,  his  business  and  pleasures,  being  under 
the  law  of  a  morality  quite  secular ;  his  soul  and  its  eternal 
affairs  sitting  apart  in  a  love  quite  spiritual.  Who  shall  draw 
the  line  between  the  provinces,  and  know  practically,  hour  by 
hour,  where  he  stands  ?  Living  confusedly  in  both,  a  man  is 
apt  to  acquire  a  sort  of  double  consciousness,  and  fluctuate 
distractedly  between  Caesar  and  God.  He  believes,  perhaps, 
that  the  kingdoms  of  nature  and  of  grace  are  destined  always 
to  remain  side  by  side,  neither  absorbing  the  other  till  the  day 
of  doom.  In  that  case,  he  will  let  other  men  create  all  the 
secular  usages,  the  moralities  of  trade,  the  maxims  of  politics ; 


340  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

standing  aloof  from  them  as  not  belonging  to  his  realm,  and 
falling  in  with  them  freely  in  his  own  case.  They  may  be  of 
questionable  veracity  and  justice ;  but  they  belong  to  the 
Devil's  world,  and  are  as  good  rules  as  can  be  expected  from 
legislators  sitting  in  the  synagogue  of  Satan.  Why  should  he 
decline  to  profit  by  them,  now  that  they  are  there  ?  When 
Eve  has  plucked  the  apple,  it  is  too  late  for  Adam  not  to  taste 
the  fruit.  The  pious  broker  comes  on  'Change  as  into  a  for- 
eign world,  on  which  he  is  pushed  by  humiliating  necessities, 
and  in  which  he  feels  an  interest  derived  from  them  alone :  he 
has  his  citizenship  elsewhere  ;  he  disdains  naturalization  ;  he 
is  but  a  temporary  settler ;  he  wants  no  vote  about  the  laws ; 
but,  taking  them  as  they  are,  cuts  his  crop  and  retires.  The 
coolness  with  which  people  who  live  above  the  world  some- 
times avail  themselves  of  its  lowest  verge  of  usage  is  truly 
amazing.  An  affluent  gentleman  of  high  religious  profession, 
subscriber  to  Gospel  schools,  believer  in  prevenient  grace,  and 
otherwise  the  pride  of  the  Evangelical  heart,  found  himself 
not  insensible  to  the  approaches  of  the  Hudson  mania,  spec- 
ulated far  beyond  the  resources  of  his  fortune,  declined  to  take 
up  his  bad  bargains,  and  thus,  at  the  expense  of  utter  ruin  to 
his  agent,  escaped  with  comparatively  easy  loss  to  himself. 
The  agent,  being  but  an  honorable  sinner  of  the  worldly  class, 
was  struck  down  by  the  blow  into  great  depression.  His 
employer  was  enabled  to  take  a  more  cheerful  view,  and,  on 
meeting  his  poor  victim,  rallied  him  on  his  dejected  looks  and 
hopeless  thoughts,  so  different  from  his  own  resigned  and  com- 
fortable state  of  mind :  —  "  But  ah !  I  forgot,"  he  added  with 
a  sigh,  "  you  are  not  blessed  with  my  religious  consolations  ! " 
Where  no  such  positively  odious  results  as  these  are  produced, 
there  is  still  often  observable  the  negative  selfishness  of  indif- 
ference to  political  welfare  and  political  morals,  —  an  affected 
withdrawal  from  temporal  interests  in  the  neighborhood  or  the 
State,  and  an  insensibility  to  public  injustice  strangely  dispro- 
portioned  to  the  zeal  displayed  against  innocent  amusements 
and  the  nervousness  on  behalf  of  invisible  subtilties  of  creed. 
The  false  opposition,  however,  between  the  world  and  the 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  341 

Church  is  not  always  thus  passive  and  quiescent.  It  is  not 
always  recognized  by  those  who  hold  it,  as  being  a  permanent 
fact  to  be  merely  sighed  over  and  let  alone.  Many  men  are 
too  earnest  and  truthful  to  settle  down  and  pitch  their  tent 
upon  a  ground  rocking  with  contradiction ;  to  live  two  lives 
wholly  unreconciled,  one  in  the  shame  of  nature,  the  other  in 
the  confidence  of  grace  ;  or  to  belong  to  two  societies,  —  one 
political,  the  other  spiritual,  —  conducted  on  principles  at  in- 
curable variance  with  each  other.  That  a  rule  of  action 
should  be  secularly  good  and  religiously  hateful,  —  that  a  sen- 
timent should  be  fitly  applauded  in  Parliament  and  groaned 
over  in  the  conventicle,  —  is  to  them  an  intolerable  unreality, 
like  the  celebrated  verdict  of  the  University  of  Paris,  that  a 
doctrine  might  be  true  in  philosophy  and  false  in  theology. 
In  their  hands,  accordingly,  the  antithesis  between  the  human 
and  the  divine  is  not  a  quiescent,  but  a  conflicting  dualism,  in 
which  their  religious  ideas  become  aggressive,  and  assume  a 
commission  to  drive  back  and  humble  the  world.  They  claim 
the  earth  for  God,  and  think  the  surrender  incomplete  while 
anything  natural  remains;  —  while  any  instinct  is  uncrushed, 
any  laughter  unstifled,  any  genius,  however  pure,  a  law  unto 
itself.  The  crusade  against  temporal  interests  and  pursuits, 
consequent  upon  this  state  of  mind,  changes  its  form  with  the 
culture  and  habits  of  the  age.  In  the  early  years  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, when  the  whole  Bible  was  spread  open  beneath  the 
thirsting  eye  of  an  undistinguishing  enthusiasm,  the  effect 
threatened  at  one  time  to  be  more  terrible  than  glorious.  The 
full  thunder-cloud  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  stealing  over  a 
world  in  negative  stagnation,  waked  the  sleeping  lightnings  of 
the  soul,  and  for  a  while  streaked  the  atmosphere  of  history 
with  fearful  portents.  Everything  that  had  been  written  of 
the  chosen  people,  their  exodus,  their  law,  their  poetry,  their 
passions,  —  everything  except  the  relentings  of  their  nature 
and  the  unsteadiness  of  their  faith,  —  became  consecrated 
alike.  The  military  clang  of  their  early  history,  the  harp  of 
their  sweet  singer,  the  choral  pomp  of  their  priestly  rule,  the 
mystic  voices  of  their  lonely  men  of  God,  —  all  were  Divine 
29* 


342  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

music  alike,  often  more  exciting  than  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  and  not  less  piercing  than  the  anguish  in  Gethsemane. 
Such  was  the  sequence  and  connection  of  the  Divine  dispen- 
sations supposed  to  be,  that  Christianity  was  simply  the  Jew- 
ish theocracy,  only  let  loose  out  of  Palestine  to  make  a  prom- 
ised land  of  the  whole  world.  The  downtrodden  serfs  of 
Franconia  had  not  long  heard  the  glad  tidings  from  Witten- 
berg, ere  they  began  to  draw  parallels  between  themselves 
and  the  old  Israel  when  the  desert  had  been  passed.  They 
had  been  brought  to  the  brink  of  new  hope,  and  looked,  as 
across  Jordan,  to  an  inheritance  verdant  and  tempting  to  their 
eye.  The  earth  was  the  Lord's,  and  the  army  of  the  saints 
was  come  to  take  it ;  the  bannered  princes,  the  ungodly 
priests,  the  "  men  with  spurs  upon  their  heels,"  all  the  carnal 
who  peopled  this  Canaan  and  perched  their  "  eagle's  nests " 
on  every  height,  must  be  smitten  and  cleared  off.  The  time 
of  jubilee  was  come,  when  every  believer  should  have  his 
field  of  heritage ;  nay,  the  birds  in  the  forest,  the  fish  in  the 
stream,  the  fruits  of  the  ground,  whatever  has  the  sacred  seal 
of  God's  creative  power,  should  be  free  to  all,  and  the  noble 
should  eat  the  peasant's  bread  or  die.  The  lawyers  should 
take  their  heathenish  courts  away,  and  men  of  God  should 
sit  and  judge  the  people,  according  to  the  spirit  and  the  word. 
The  harvest  was  ripe,  when  the  tares  must  be  burned  in  the 
fire  and  the  pure  wheat  be  garnered  for  the  Lord.  These 
were  the  ideas  which  thousands  of  armed  men,  with  a  clouted 
shoe  and  a  cart-wheel  for  their  standards,  and  a  leader  who 
signed  himself  "  the  sword  of  Gideon,"  preached  as  their  Gos- 
pel through  the  forests  of  Thuringia  and  beneath  the  citadel 
of  Wiirzburg.  Nor  was  the  ripest  learning,  much  less  the 
most  generous  spirit  of  the  time,  any  security  against  the 
adoption  of  their  doctrine.  It  was  not  Mlinzer  alone  who 
breathed  the  fierce  inspiration,  exhorting  his  swarthy  miners 
to  "  lay  Nimrod  on  the  anvil,  and  let  it  ring  bravely  with  their 
strokes  "  ;  but  the  honest  Carlstadt,  too,  scholar,  preacher,  dia- 
lectician as  he  is,  lays  aside  his  broadcloth,  and  appears  in 
white  felt  hat  and  rustic  coat  at  the  cross  of  Rothenburg,  to 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  343 

preach  encouragement  to  the  people  and  bring  fresh  sorrow 
on  himself.  Throughout  the  great  movement  which  in  the 
third  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century  spread  insurrection  from 
the  Breisgau  to  Saxony,  the  peasants  were  animated  with  the 
belief  that  the  Gospel,  armed  with  the  sword  of  Joshua,  was 
to  subjugate  the  world,  and  that  all  the  conditions  of  property, 
of  law,  of  civil  administration,  under  which  secular  communi- 
ties exist,  were  to  be  superseded  by  institutions  conformed  to 
a  divine  model.  The  leading  Reformers,  terrified  by  the  re- 
ligious socialism  which  they  had  raised,  were  ready  enough 
to  denounce  and  crush  it.  But  in  truth  their  own  idea  differed 
from  this  insurgent  faith  more  in  form  than  in  essence  ;  lodg- 
ing the  power  in  different  hands,  and  prescribing  to  it  a  differ- 
ent method,  but  assigning  to  it  a  similar  trust  for  the  same 
ultimate  ends.  The  kingdoms  of  this  world  were  to  be  made 
the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  and  of  his  Christ ;  and  the  temporal 
power  was  everywhere  to  assume  a  spiritual  function,  and 
make  aggression  on  whatever  opposed  itself  to  the  severity 
and  sanctity  of  the  Divine  Word.  The  converts  of  Knox,  the 
troopers  of  Cromwell,  the  town-councillors  of  Geneva,  acting 
on  this  doctrine,  claimed  the  whole  of  human  life  as  their  do- 
main, and  pushed  the  inquisitions  of  police  into  private  habits, 
and  even  the  secret  inclinations  of  personal  belief.  Playing- 
cards  and  song-books  were  denounced  and  seized,  as  if  they 
came  from  the  Devil's  printing-press ;  dancing  prohibited,  as 
a  profane  escape  of  the  natural  members  into  mirthful  agita- 
tion ;  concerts  silenced,  as  enslaving  immortal  souls  to  the  de- 
lusive sweetness  of  strings  and  wind ;  the  caps  of  women 
and  the  coats  of  men  shaped  to  evangelic  type  ;  and,  as  if  the 
world  were  a  great  school,  the  gates  of  cities,  and  even  the 
doors  of  houses,  were  closed  at  temperate  hours  by  vesper  bell 
or  signal  gun.  Asceticism  grasped  the  sceptre  and  the  sword, 
and  demanded  the  capitulation  of  the  world.  How  vain  and 
dangerous  this  tyrannous  repression  of  nature  is,  the  reaction 
during  the  seventeenth  century  into  reckless  and  fatal  license 
emphatically  declares  ;  and  the  contrast  shows  the  necessity  of 
finding  some  mediating  term,  some  reconciling  wisdom,  by 


344  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

which  the  antagonism  may  cease  between  the  world  and  heav- 
en, between  natural  morals  and  Christian  aspiration.  Yet 
under  a  change  of  form  the  struggle  is  still  continued ;  and 
with  those  who  most  prominently  assume  to  represent  the 
aims  of  Christianity,  the  present  life,  the  temporal  world,  has 
no  adequate  recognition  of  its  rights.  They  have  no  trust  in 
human  nature  as  divinely  constituted,  and  as  having  no  part 
or  passion  without  some  fitting  range.  They  dare  not  leave 
it  out  of  sight  for  an  instant :  they  must  draw  up  a  dietary 
for  it,  of  sufficing  vegetables  and  water ;  they  must  watch  its 
temper,  and  see  that  it  behaves  with  winning  sweetness  to  all 
rascality ;  they  must  guard  its  purse,  and  teach  it  that  to  live 
cheaply,  spending  nothing  for  ornament  and  beauty,  nothing 
for  honor  and  right,  but  only  for  subsistence  and  charity,  is 
the  great  wisdom  of  man ;  they  must  stifle  its  indignations, 
lest  it  should  cease  to  hold  out  its  cheek  to  Russia,  and,  having 
gone  one  shameful  mile  with  "the  nephew  of  my  uncle," 
should  refuse  to  go  with  him  another.  Both  the  ascetic  doc- 
trine and  the  extreme  peace  principles  of  the  present  day,  as 
well  as  its  tendency  to  renounce  all  retributory  punishment, 
betray,  in  our  opinion,  a  morbidly  scrupulous  apprehension  of 
evil,  quite  blinding  to  the  healthy  eye  for  good,  —  a  crouch- 
ing of  moral  fear,  singularly  at  variance  with  the  free  and 
noble  bearing  of  the  Apostle,  who  found  that  "  to  the  pure  all 
things  are  pure."  As  for  the  non-resistance  principle,  we 
have  shown  that  it  meant  no  more  in  the  early  Church  than 
that  the  disciples  were  not  to  anticipate  the  hour,  fast  ap- 
proaching, of  Messiah's  descent  to  claim  his  throne.  But 
when  that  hour  struck,  there  was  to  be  no  want  of  "  physical 
force,"  no  shrinking  from  retribution  as  either  unjust  or  un- 
divine.  The  "  flaming  fire,"  the  "  sudden  destruction,"  the 
"  mighty  angels,"  the  "  tribulation  and  anguish,"  were  to  form 
the  retinue  of  Christ  and  the  pioneers  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
It  was  not  that  coercion  was  deemed  unholy,  and  regarded  as 
the  agency  appropriate  to  lower  natures  and  left  behind  in  as- 
cending towards  heaven  ;  it  was  simply  that  natural  coercion 
was  not  to  fritter  itself  away,  but  leave  the  tield  open  for  the 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  345 

supernatural.  The  new  reign  was  to  come  with  force ;  and 
on  nothing  else,  in  the  last  resort,  was  there  any  reliance  ;  only 
the  army  was  to  arrive  from  heaven  before  the  earthly  re- 
cruits were  taken  up.  Nothing,  indeed,  can  well  be  further 
from  the  sentiment  of  Scripture  than  the  extreme  horror  of 
force,  as  a  penal  and  disciplinary  instrument,  which  is  incul- 
cated in  modern  times.  "  My  kingdom,"  said  Jesus,  "  is  not  of 
this  world  ;  else  would  my  servants  fight "  ;  —  an  expression 
which  implies  that  no  kingdom  of  this  world  can  dispense 
with  arms,  and  that  he  himself,  were  he  the  head  of  a  human 
polity,  would  not  forbid  the  sword ;  but  while  "  legions  of  an- 
gels "  stood  ready  for  his  word,  and  only  waited  till  the  Scrip- 
ture was  fulfilled  and  the  hour  of  darkness  was  passed,  to  obey 
the  signal  of  heavenly  invasion,  the  weapon  of  earthly  temper 
might  remain  within  the  sheath.  The  infant  Church,  subsist- 
ing in  the  heart  of  a  military  empire,  and  expecting  from  on 
high  a  military  rescue,  was  not  itself  to  fight ;  not,  however, 
because  force  was  in  all  cases  "  brutal "  and  "  heathenish," 
but  because,  in  this  case,  it  was  to  be  angelic  and  celestial.  It 
is  evident  that  precepts  given  under  the  influence  of  these 
ideas  can  have  no  just  application  to  the  actual  duties  of  citi- 
zens and  states,  whose  problems  of  conduct,  whose  very  ex- 
istence, they  never  contemplated ;  and  that  to  urge  them  upon 
modern  society  as  political  canons  is  to  introduce  a  doctrine 
which,  under  cover  of  their  form,  violently  outrages  their 
spirit. 

The  mistaken  antithesis  between  temporal  and  spiritual 
things  runs  into  the  greatest  excess,  wherever  the  inherent 
pravity  of  human  nature  is  most  exaggerated.  There  are 
churches,  however,  —  the  Catholic  and  the  Arminian,  —  in 
whose  doctrines  the  natural  condition  of  man  is  painted  in 
colors  far  removed  from  the  deepest  shade ;  and  which  deem 
him  not  so  much  incapable  of  right  moral  discernment,  as 
weakened  for  faithful  moral  execution.  In  this  view,  the 
function  of  Christianity  is  not  to  supersede  and  cancel,  but  to 
supplement  and  guide,  the  native  energies  of  the  soul ;  not  to 
raise  it  from  a  mad  trance,  in  which  all  thought  and  feeling 


346  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

are  themselves  but  a  false  glare,  but  to  apply  a  tonic  and  heal- 
ing power,  enabling  it  to  do  the  right  which  it  has  already- 
light  enough  to  see.  Professor  Fitzgerald  is  an  adherent  to 
this  doctrine,  and  justly  contends  that  no  lower  estimate  of 
human  nature  can  consist  with  responsibility  at  all. 

"  I  am  not  to  be  ranked,"  he  says,  "  amongst  those  who  as- 
sume that  human  corruption  has  not  affected  the  natural  power 
of  the  moral  sense.  I  think  it  has.  No  doubt  sinful  deprav- 
ity, wherever  it  is  indulged,  is,  as  Aristotle  long  ago  remarked, 
(f)dapriKTi  ra>v  dpx&v,  —  it  tends  to  weaken  or  deprave  the  sen- 
timent of  moral  censure,  and  to  blunt  the  perception  of  moral 
evil 

"  An  eloquent  but  superficial  French  moralist  has  compared 
the  conscience  to  a  table-rock  in  the  ocean,  its  surface,  just 
above  the  ripple,  bearing  an  inscription  graven  in  the  stone, 
which  a  genius,  hovering  over  it,  reads  aloud.  At  times  the 
waves  arise  and  sweep  over  the  tablet,  concealing  the  mystic 
characters.  Then  the  reader  is  compelled  to  pause.  But 
after  a  while  the  wind  is  lulled,  the  waves  sink  back  to  their 
accustomed  level,  the  inscription  stands  out  clear  and  legible, 
and  the  genius  resumes  his  interrupted  task. 

"  This  comparison  might  gain  something  in  correctness  if 
we  imagine  the  inscription  traced  upon  a  softer  substance. 
For  the  stormy  waves  of  passion  not  only  conceal,  while  they 
prevail,  the  sacred  characters  of  virtue,  but,  as  billow  after  bil- 
low passes  over  the  tablet,  they  tend  to  obliterate  the  lines. 

"  But  in  making  these  large  concessions,  (which  I  do  very 
willingly,)  I  do  not  feel  that  I  am  surrendering  the  cause.  It 
is  one  thing  to  say  that  the  discriminating  power  of  the  moral 
judgment  is  affected  and  impaired  by  human  corruption,  and 
quite  another  to  say  that  it  is  destroyed.  It  is  one  thing  to  say 
that  it  sometimes  goes  wrong,  and  another  that  we  can  never 
depend  on  its  decisions.  Most  men's  experience  has  often 
brought  them  acquainted  with  persons  who  had  impaired,  in 
some  way  or  other,  their  natural  powers  of  perceiving  truth 
or  excellence  in  some  respects,  without  losing  either  sound 
principles  of  reason  or  sound  principles  of  honesty  in  others. 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  347 

And  the  way  to  correct  such  obliquities  of  intellectual  or 
moral  judgment  is,  not  to  tell  men  that  they  should  distrust 
their  natural  faculties  altogether,  but  to  avail  ourselves  of  so 
much  as  remains  sound  to  discover  the  mistake  or  imperfec- 
tion which  we  seek  to  remedy  or  supply.  The  appeal,  in  such 
cases,  is  from  the  reason  or  conscience  perverted  or  impaired, 
to  the  same  faculties  in  what  physicians  would  call  their  nor- 
mal state.  When  the  effaced  portions  of  the  inscription  are 
to  be  restored,  the  evidence  of  the  correction  results  from  its 
harmonizing  with  the  part  which  has  not  been  obliterated; 
and  an  interpolation  may  be  detected  by  its  disturbing  the  co- 
herence of  the  context,  —  an  omission  by  leaving  it  imperfect 
or  unintelligible."  —  p.  26. 

On  this  principle  alone,  unhappily  but  little  congenial  with 
the  spirit  and  traditions  of  Protestant  churches,  can  Christian- 
ity coexist  with  natural  ethics.  Faith  adopts  morals,  purifies 
and  sublimes  them,  and  especially  changes  the  character  of 
their  force  ;  —  for  a  law  of  compulsion  from  below,  substitut- 
ing a  love  of  God  above.  The  enmity  ceases  between  the 
world  and  heaven ;  the  physical  earth  is  not  more  certainly 
afloat  in  space,  and  on  the  muster-roll  of  stars,  than  the  pres- 
ent life  is  plunged  in  eternity,  and  not  behind  its  chiefest  sanc- 
tities. There  is  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of,  nothing  to  be 
slurred  over  as  an  unmanageable  necessity,  in  the  natural  con- 
stitution and  relations  of  men ;  whatever  acts  they  prescribe, 
whatever  combinations  they  require,  are  within  the  scope  and 
consecration  of  religion.  The  whole  compass  of  the  world 
and  its  affairs,  all  the  gifts  and  activities  of  men,  are  brought 
within  moral  jurisdiction,  and  included  in  the  embrace  of  a 
genial  reverence.  No  narrow  interpretation  is  longer  possi- 
ble of  the  province  of  human  piety,  and  the  true  type  of  a 
noble  goodness ;  as  though  they  demanded  a  definite  set  of 
actions,  rather  than  a  certain  style  of  soul,  and  denied  a  place 
to  any  affection  or  pursuit  which  can  adorn  and  glorify  exist- 
ence. Divine  things  are  not  put  away  into  foreign  realms  of 
being,  and  future  reaches  of  time,  attainable  by  no  path  of 
toil,  no  spring  of  effort,  only  by  miraculous  transport ;  but  are 


348  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

met  with  every  day,  shining  through  the  substance  of  life  and 
hid  amid  its  hours.  Whatever  original  endowments,  what- 
ever acquired  virtues,  enrich  and  elevate  our  immediate  sphere, 
—  the  Thought  which  finds  its  truth,  the  Genius  that  evolves 
its  beauty,  the  Honor  that  guards  its  nobleness,  the  Love 
which  lightens  the  burden  of  its  sorrows,  —  are  not  mere  tem- 
poral embellishments  indifferent  to  its  sacredness,  but  attri- 
butes that  bring  men  nearer  to  the  sympathy  and  similitude  of 
God.  Art,  literature,  politics,  employing  the  highest  human 
activities,  and  constituting  the  very  blossom  and  fruit  of  all 
our  culture,  are  recognized  as  having  an  earnest  root,  and  not 
being  the  light  growth  of  secular  gayety  and  selfishness.  We 
have  no  sympathy  with  the  sentimental  and  immoral  propen- 
sity, which  corrupts  the  newest  Continental  philosophy,  to 
recognize  whatever  comes  into  existence  as  ipso  facto  divine. 
But  we  do  believe  that  the  great  change  for  which  the  secret 
religiousness  of  this  age  pines,  and  which  it  is  sorely  strait- 
ened till  it  can  accomplish,  is  the  deliberate  adoption  into 
"heavenly  places"  of  this  world,  its  faculties  and  affairs,  just 
as  God  has  made  them,  and  man's  unfaithfulness  has  not  yet 
spoiled  them.  The  products  of  human  baseness,  hypocrisy, 
and  ambition,  —  let  them  remain  hateful,  eternally  contrary  to 
God,  things  scarce  safe  to  pity ;  but  believe  not  that  they 
have  got  this  planet  entirely  to  themselves,  and  have  snatched 
it  as  their  pecidium  quite  out  of  the  Supreme  Hand.  Men 
are  tired  of  straining  their  thought  along  the  diameter  of  the 
universe  to  seek  for  a  Holy  of  Holies  in  whatever  is  opposite 
to  their  life ;  they  find  a  worship  possible,  even  irresistible,  at 
home,  and  on  the  road-side  a  place  as  fit  to  kneel  as  on  the 
pavement  of  the  Milky  Way.  The  old  antagonism  between 
the  world  that  now  is,  and  any  other  that  has  been  or  is  to 
come,  has  been  modified  for  them,  or  has  even  entirely  ceased. 
The  earth  is  no  place  of  diabolic  exile,  which  the  "  prince  of 
the  power  of  the  air  "  ever  fans  and  darkens  with  his  wing  ; 
and  were  it  even,  as  was  once  believed,  appointed  to  perish, 
this  would  be  not  because  its  failure  was  complete,  but  because 
its  task  was  done.  JNo  vengeance  burns  in  the  sunshine  which 


THE   ETHICS   OP   CHRISTENDOM.  349 

mellows  its  fruits  and  paints  its  grass ;  no  threatenings  flash 
from  the  starry  eyes  that  watch  over  it  by  night.  It  is  not 
only  the  home  of  each  man's  personal  affections,  but  the  native 
country  of  his  very  soul ;  where  first  he  found  in  what  a  life 
he  lives,  and  to  what  heaven  he  tends ;  where  he  has  met  the 
touch  of  spirits  higher  than  his  own,  and  of  Him  that  is  high- 
est of  all.  It  is  the  abode  of  every  ennobling  relation,  the 
scene  of  every  worthy  toil ;  —  the  altar  of  his  vows,  the  ob- 
servatory of  his  knowledge,  the  temple  of  his  worship.  What- 
ever succeeds  to  it  will  be  its  sequel,  not  its  opposite,  will  re- 
sume the  tale  wherever  silence  overtakes  it,  and  be  blended 
into  one  life  by  sameness  of  persons  and  continuity  of  plan. 
He  is  set  here  to  live,  not  as  an  alien,  passing  in  disguise 
through  an  enemy's  camp,  where  no  allegiance  is  due,  and  no 
worthy  love  is  possible,  but  as  a  citizen  fixed  on  an  historic 
soil,  pledged  by  honorable  memories  to  nurse  yet  nobler  hopes. 
Here  is  the  spot,  now  is  the  time,  for  the  most  devoted  service 
of  God.  No  strains  of  heaven  will  wake  him  into  prayer,  if 
the  common  music  of  humanity  stirs  him  not.  The  saintly 
company  of  spirits  will  throng  around  him  in  vain,  if  he  finds 
no  angels  of  duty  and  affection  in  his  children,  neighbors,  and 
friends.  If  no  heavenly  voices  wander  around  him  in  the 
present,  the  future  will  be  but  the  dumb  change  of  the  shadow 
on  the  dial.  In  short,  higher  stages  of  existence  are  not  the 
refuge  from  this,  but  the  complement  to  it ;  and  it  is  the  prop- 
er wisdom  of  the  affections,  not  to  escape  the  one  in  order  to 
seek  the  other,  but  to  flow  forth  in  purifying  copiousness  on 
both. 

We  have  said  that  men  are  tired  of  having  their  earthly 
and  their  heavenly  relations  set  up  in  sharp  opposition  to  each 
other,  and  are  eager  to  live  here  in  a  consecrated  world.  This 
tendency  has  already  found  expression  in  two  remarkable  and 
apparently  dissimilar  phenomena,  —  the  partial  success  of  the 
Anglican  and  Catholic  reaction,  and  the  vast  influence  on 

O 

English  society  of  the  late  Dr.  Arnold's  character.      Both 
were  virtual  protests  against  that  removal  of  God  out  of  the 
common  human  life,  that  unreconciled  condition  of  Law  and 
30 


350  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

Gospel,  which  had  made  the  evangelical  theology  sickening 
and  unreal.  A  path  had  to  be  opened  for  the  re-introduction 
of  a  divine  presence  into  the  sphere  of  temporal  things.  New- 
man resorted  to  the  supernatural  channel  of  Church  miracle  ; 
Arnold  to  the  natural  course  of  human  affairs,  and  the  perma- 
nent sacredness  of  human  obligation.  Both  restored  to  us  a 
solemn  mystery  of  immediate  Incarnation ;  the  one  putting 
life,  in  order  to  its  consecration,  into  contact  with  the  sacra- 
ments ;  the  other  spreading  a  sacramental  veneration  over  the 
whole  of  life.  Arnold,  especially,  saw  the  great  moral  evils 
which  have  arisen  from  the  evangelical  depreciation  of  the 
"  profane  "  world.  The  secular,  he  was  well  aware,  has  be- 
come too  secular,  the  spiritual  too  merely  spiritual.  Human 
nature  is  permitted  to  have  play  with  unchecked  wilfulness  in 
the  one,  and  is  allowed  no  place  at  all  in  the  other.  The  ob- 
ligations of  natural  law  are  held  in  light  esteem,  as  if,  in  being 
social,  they  fell  short  of  being  sacred.  The  exercises  of  intel- 
lect, in  the  survey  of  nature  or  the  interpretation  of  history, 
are  often  stigmatized  as  a  mere  earthly  curiosity,  permissible 
to  reason,  but  neutral  to  the  soul.  The  worst  of  it  is,  that 
these  notions,  once  become  habitual,  fulfil  their  own  predic- 
tions. As  there  is  nothing  which  the  heart  cannot  sanctify,  so 
is  there  nothing  which  it  may  not  secularize.  Tell  men  that 
in  their  natural  affections  there  is  nothing  holy,  and  their 
homes  will  soon  be  nests  of  common  instinct.  Assure  them 
that  hi  their  business  it  is  the  unregenerate  will,  and  the  ani- 
mal necessity,  that  labor  for  the  bread  which  perisheth,  and 
soon  enough  will  an  irreverent  greediness  and  a  cankered 
anxiety  usurp  the  place.  Persuade  them  that  to  study  the 
order  of  creation  or  the  records  of  past  ages  is  but  a  "  car- 
nal "  pursuit,  and  the  student's  prayer  for  light  will  become  a 
mere  ambition  for  distinction,  the  meditations  of  wonder  be 
stifled  in  the  dust  of  mental  day-labor,  and  the  tears  of  admi- 
ration drop  no  more  on  the  page  of  ancient  wisdom.  This 
was  what  Arnold  could  not  abide ;  to  see  religion  flying  off 
on  wings  of  pompous  pretence  to  other  worlds,  and  leaving 
no  heavenly  glory  upon  the  earth,  but  letting  her  very  fields 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  351 

be  paved  into  a  street.  There  was  no  attempt  to  save  a  spot 
for  any  earnest  reality,  except  the  poor  little  enclosure  behind 
the  altar  rail.  The  Church  will  consecrate  a  graveyard  for 
the  dead,  but  leaves  the  market  of  the  living  still  unblessed : 
you  may  dissolve  away  in  benediction,  when  your  years  are 
over  of  toil  and  sweat  beneath  the  curse.  To  one  who  ac- 
knowledges a  natural  conscience  and  a  natural  element  in 
faith,  there  is  a  religion  in  little  in  every  part  of  life ;  it  gives 
at  least  a  note  in  the  chords  and  melody  of  worship.  Hence 
Arnold's  curious  doctrine  of  the  Church  as  covering  all  human 
relations  whatsoever,  and  including  the  whole  organism  of  the 
State.  He  would  have  nothing  which  the  laws  of  this  uni- 
verse imposed  on  the  will  of  man  done  without  a  clear  and 
pious  recognition ;  it  was  not  to  be  illicitly  smuggled  in,  as  if 
run  ashore  in  a  gale  of  confusion  that  could  not  be  helped,  but 
must  be  steadily  accounted  for  and  stored  in  open  day.  Ethi- 
cally, this  doctrine,  though,  from  its  adaptation  to  a  permanent 
world,  it  is  the  least  Apostolic  in  appearance,  is,  of  all  inter- 
pretations of  Christianity,  the  most  true ;  and  if  it  were  not 
for  clinging  ideas  of  extra-moral  dogma  and  special  priesthood, 
as  limiting  the  conception  of  "  the  Church,"  would  go  far  to 
repeat  for  our  age  the  work  of  Socrates  for  his,  and  bring 
down  our  divine  philosophy  from  heaven  to  earth.  It  gets  rid 
entirely  of  the  false  spiritualism  which  has  either  withheld  re- 
ligious men  from  political  affairs,  or  induced  them  to  urge  on 
statesmen  rules  applicable  only  where  government  can  be  dis- 
pensed with  altogether.  It  rescues  Christianity  from  the  deg- 
radation of  being  hypocritically  flattered  as  the  great  persua- 
sive to  peace  by  rulers  whom  it  does  not  restrain  from  going 
to  war,  and  relieves  it  of  an  oppressive  weight  of  false  expec- 
tation, as  though  it  broke  its  promise  to  the  world  every  time 
a  new  case  of  strife  appeared.  Nothing  can  well  be  more 
damaging  to  a  religion,  than  to  commit  it  to  unqualified  disap- 
probation of  anything  which  must  exist  while  human  nature 
lasts,  and  to  set  it  frowning  with  ineffectual  sublimity  on  the 
passions  and  events  which  determine  the  whole  course  of  his- 
tory. The  amiable  enthusiasts  who  propose  to  conduct  the 


352  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

affairs  of  nations  on  principles  of  brotherly  love,  and  who,  till 
that  consummation  is  reached,  can  only  stand  by  and  protest, 
do  but  weaken  their  country  for  purposes  of  justice  and  bring 
their  faith  into  merited  commiseration.  It  is  commonly  said 
that  they  are  a  harmless  class,  who  may  even  form  a  useful 
counterpoise  to  the  warlike  susceptibilities  of  less  scrupulous 
men.  We  have  no  belief,  however,  in  the  efficacy  of  false- 
hood and  exaggeration,  or  in  the  attainment  of  truth  and  mod- 
eration by  the  neutralizing  action  of  opposite  extravagances. 
The  reverence  for  human  life  is  carried  to  an  immoral  idolatry, 
when  it  is  held  more  sacred  than  justice  and  right,  and  when 
the  spectacle  of  blood  becomes  more  horrible  than  the  sight  of 
desolating  tyrannies  and  triumphant  hypocrisies.  Life,  indeed, 
is  just  the  one  thing  —  the  reserved  capital,  the  rest,  the 
ultimate  security  —  on  whose  disposability  in  the  last  resort, 
and  on  the  free  control  over  which,  the  very  existence  of  so- 
ciety depends.  The  first  and  highest  social  bond  is  no  doubt 
to  be  found  in  a  religious  sentiment,  a  common  veneration  for 
the  same  things  as  right  and  intrinsically  binding  on  men  that 
live  side  by  side ;  and  the  worship,  with  its  institutions,  of 
every  community,  is  its  instinctive  attempt  to  get  these  things 
spontaneously  done  by  the  force  of  reverence.  Could  this 
point  be  really  carried,  nothing  would  remain  to  be  accom- 
plished ;  religion  would  complete  and  perfect  the  incorporation 
of  mutual  loyalty  which  it  had  begun.  But  there  are  some 
in  whom  the  sentiment  of  common  reverence  fails,  and  for 
whose  fidelity  to  the  moral  ends  of  the  social  union  there  is 
therefore  no  natural  guaranty.  To  reach  these  cases,  society 
has  no  resource  but  coercive  methods,  actual  or  threatened ; 
the  threat  is  Law ;  the  actuality  is  Punishment ;  the  power 
to  which  both  are  committed  is  a  Government ;  the  common- 
wealth on  whose  behalf  they  exist  is  a  State.  The  very  con- 
stitution of  a  state  thus  presupposes  the  possible  violation  of 
moral  right,  the  partial  failure  of  religion  to  secure  its  obser- 
vance, and  the  determination  to  enforce  on  the  reluctant  an 
obedience  refused  of  free  will.  Force,  however,  is  applicable 
only  to  men's  bodies ;  it  is  a  restraint  and  pressure  on  the 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  353 

functions  of  their  life ;  and  if  that  life  be  sacred  from  infringe- 
ment, the  political  existence  of  nations  is  itself  an  offence 
against  the  law  of  God.  All  law,  all  polity,  is  a  proclamation 
that  justice  is  better  than  life,  and,  if  need  be,  shall  override 
it  and  all  the  possessions  it  includes ;  and  nothing  can  be 
weaker  or  more  suicidal  than  for  men  who  are  citizens  of  a 
commonwealth  to  announce,  that,  for  their  part,  they  mean  to 
hold  life  in  higher  esteem  than  justice.  Moreover,  there  is  a 
low-minded  egotism  often  disguised  in  this  doctrine  of  passive 
meekness.  As  an  inducement  to  quiet  endurance  of  wrong, 
we  are  reminded  of  the  duty  of  "mutual  forgiveness."  Is  all 
the  wickedness,  then,  that  I  am  doomed  to  witness,  nothing 
but  a, personal  affront?  When  a  rascal  threatens  to  blow  out 
my  neighbor's  brains,  or  to  blast  his  character  by  infamous 
accusations,  am  /in  a  position  to  forbear  and  pardon  ?  Must 
I  not  own  myself  under  a  solemn  trust,  to  see  the  right  done 
and  the  guilty  punished  ?  Nay,  would  not  the  injured  man 
himself  greatly  mistake  the  nature  of  the  crime,  and  measure 
it  by  a  paltry  standard,  if  he  took  it  for  a  mere  private  offence 
which  it  was  his  prerogative  to  punish  or  to  overlook  ?  "  Who 
is  this  that  forgiveth  sins  also  ?  "  The  eternal  laws  of  justice 
are  not  of  our  enacting ;  and  no  will  of  ours  has  title  to  sus- 
pend or  to  repeal  them.  The  real  and  only  demand  of  Chris- 
tian magnanimity  is,  that  we  visit  them  with  no  vengeance, 
but  merely  with  moral  retribution;  —  that  is,  with  no  more 
severity  when  directed  against  ourselves,  than  when  we  see 
them  at  an  impersonal  distance.  But  to  regard  and  treat  the 
guilty  as  if  he  were  an  innocent,  —  that  is  given  to  no  man, 
and  is  even  inconceivable  of  God.  Rulers,  at  all  events,  as 
trustees  of  rights  other  than  their  own,  —  and  each  generation 
of  a  people,  as  charged  with  the  interests  of  successors  in  per- 
petuity, —  have  but  a  limited  privilege  of  forbearance ;  the 
meekness  of  the  saint  would  in  them  be  treason  to  the  world. 
Even  in  international  disputes,  where  each  party  may  have  a 
conviction  of  right,  the  controversy,  but  for  the  possibility  of 
force,  could  have  no  end.  It  is  a  delusion  to  rely  on  courts  as 
a  substitute  for  armies,  and  to  suppose  that  judicial  decision 
30* 


354  THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

can  supersede  military.  The  judge  would  be  of  small  avail 
without  the  constable ;  and  the  arbitrator  between  nations 
would  need  a  European  army  to  enforce  his  decrees.  Where 
the  stake  is  large  and  the  feeling  strong,  it  is  notorious  that 
the  private  disputant  rarely  acquiesces  in  an  arbitration  that 
goes  against  him;  but  carries  his  case  to  the  last  appeal, 
where  it  is  stopped  by  a  barrier  of  impassable  force.  You 
might  as  well  pull  down  your  jails  in  preparation  for  the  as- 
sizes, as  destroy  your  fleets  and  arsenals  in  quest  of  inter- 
national arbitration.  We  speak  only  of  the  ultimate  theory 
of  this  matter,  and  simply  affirm,  that  wherever  law  and  gov- 
ernment exist,  somewhere  in  the  background  force  must  lurk. 
It  may,  no  doubt,  be  provided  in  excess,  and  paraded  without 
need ;  and  with  the  progress  of  a  civilized  order,  the  circle 
may  be  ever  widened  within  which  the  idea  of  coercion,  with 
the  habits  it  creates,  may  be  substituted  for  the  obtrusive  real- 
ity ;  till  possibly  a  family  of  nations  may  be  gathered,  like  a 
group  of  counties,  into  a  common  jurisdiction.  But  this  only 
shifts  the  camp  without  disbanding  it ;  and,  after  all,  the  tip- 
staffs of  your  supreme  court  could  be  no  other  than  the  legions 
of  a  grand  army.  We  have,  therefore,  no  more  doubt  that  a 
war  may  be  right,  than  that  a  policeman  may  be  a  security  for 
justice,  and  we  object  to  a  fortress  as  little  as  to  a  handcuff. 
A  religion  which  does  not  include  the  whole  moral  law ;  a 
moral  law  which  does  not  embrace  all  the  problems  of  a  com- 
monwealth ;  a  commonwealth  which  regards  the  life  of  man 
more  than  the  equities  of  God, —  appear  to  us  unfaithful  to 
their  functions,  and  unworthy  interpreters  of  the  divine  scheme 
of  the  world.  Quaker  histories,  written  with  omission  of  all 
the  wars,  are  not  less  morbid  as  moral  mistakes,  than  a  doc- 
ti'ine  of  Providence,  leaving  out  the  whole  realm  of  heathen- 
dom, is  narrow  as  a  religious  theory  ;  and  the  misuse  of  Scrip- 
ture which  has  led  to  both,  is  most  dangerous  to  its  authority 
in  an  age  remarkable  for  the  breadth  of  its  historical  survey 
and  the  variety  of  its  ethnological  sympathies. 

In  other  ways  than  those  which  we  have  indicated  has  a 
mischievous  direction  been  given  to  modern  thought  and  feel- 


THE    ETHICS    OF    CHRISTENDOM.  355 

ing,  by  perverting  the  accidental  and  transient  form  of  the 
primitive  Christianity  into  essential  and  permanent  doctrine. 
But  our  exposition  must  proceed  no  further.  The  alternation 
of  ascetic  spiritualism  and  worldly  laxity,  the  indifference  to 
natural  affections  and  relations,  the  exclusiveness  at  once  de- 
vout and  selfish,  the  jealous  denial  of  their  rights  to  intellect 
and  art,  the  false  apprehension  of  the  true  dignity  of  law  and 
true  life  of  states,  have  been  the  more  earnestly  dwelt  upon 
from  the  conviction  that  these  ethical  infirmities  are  producing 
a  perilous  reaction,  —  a  distrust  of  all  ethical  laws  whatsoever, 
a  disposition  to  hold  everything  divine  that  finds  strength  to 
realize  itself,  —  a  worship  of  what  is,  in  place  of  an  aspiration 
to  what  ought  to  be.  To  this  we  cannot  consent.  We  cannot 
look  on  all  forms  of  human  life  and  character  with  the  neutral 
eye  of  an  equal  admiration,  as  alike  suitable  products  of  for- 
mative nature.  We  cannot  forego  the  right  of  judgment, — 
of  embracing  with  reverence  or  spurning  with  abhorrence ;  or 
part  with  the  ideal  type  of  a  perfect  soul,  to  which  all  others 
rise  as  they  approach.  Neither  do  we  believe  with  Luther, 
that  human  nature  is  a  mere  devilish  anarchy,  reducible  only 
by  supernatural  irruption ;  nor  with  the  newest  school,  that  it 
is  a  divine  anarchy,  equally  uncontrollable  from  within,  and  to 
be  accepted  as  a  wild  fact ;  but  that  it  is  a  hierarchy  of  pow- 
ers, each  having  and  knowing  its  rightful  place,  and  appeal- 
ing to  us  to  maintain  it  there.  To  listen  to  that  appeal,  and, 
in  answer  to  it,  strive  to  harmonize  the  de  facto  with  the  de 
jure  administration  of  the  soul,  destroying  the  usurpation  of 
mean  errors,  and  restoring  the  sway  of  kingly  truth,  is  the 
aim  of  morals  in  action  and  in  philosophy. 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 


The  Restoration  of  Belief.  No.  I.  Christianity  in  Relation 
to  its  Ancient  and  Modern  Antagonists.  Cambridge  :  Mac- 
millan  &  Co.  1852. 

WE  have  heard  it  quoted  as  the  remark  of  a  distinguished 
foreigner,  conversant  with  the  choicest  society  in  several  of 
the  capitals  of  Europe,  that  nowhere  is  the  alienation  of  the 
higher  and  professional  classes  from  all  religious  faith  so  wide- 
spread and  complete  as  in  England.  That  the  masses  at  the 
other  end  of  the  social  scale  are  indifferent  or  disaffected  to 
the  institutions  which  visibly  embody  the  Christianity  of  our 
age,  can  be  no  secret  to  any  observant  inhabitant  of  a  large 
English  town.  It  is  on  the  middle  class  alone  that  the  vari- 
ous forms  of  Protestant  worship  have  any  real  hold.  Re- 
moved alike  from  the  passionate  temptations  of  the  homeless 
artisan,  and  from  the  mental  activity  of  the  statesman  or  man 
of  letters,  the  rural  gentry  and  the  urban  tradespeople  are 
detained  under  traditional  influences,  partly  by  the  wholesome 
conservatism  of  moral  habit,  partly  by  helpless  accommodation 
to  conventional  standards.  Men  of  this  class,  if  once  really 
touched  and  possessed  by  earnest  conviction,  are  the  best  de- 
fenders of  a  religion  from  political  assault.  But  a  faith  ex- 
posed to  an  intellectual  struggle  finds  among  them  but  a  pre- 
carious shelter ;  especially  if  their  attachment  to  it  is  less 
a  living  persuasion  than  a  fear  of  the  blank  which  its  removal 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  357 

would  create.  Persecuted  by  the  magistrate,  they  know  how 
to  defend  their  worship  from  the  oppression  of  law.  Assailed 
by  the  critic,  they  can  offer  but  the  resistance  of  a  dumb 
impenetrability ;  they  cannot  bring  their  sterling  personal 
qualities  to  bear  upon  the  contest ;  they  are  obliged,  for  all 
active  conduct  in  the  strife,  to  trust  to  a  body  of  literary 
Swiss,  engaged  to  protect  the  Vatican  of  their  faith,  and  accus- 
tomed never  to  report  defeat.  In  proportion  as  the  methods 
of  sceptical  aggression  become  more  formidable,  and  its  tem- 
per more  earnest,  it  is  found  necessary  to  improve  the  training 
of  the  band  of  Church  defenders  ;  —  a  measure  at  once  in- 
dispensable and  fatal ;  for  it  lifts  them  into  an  intellectual 
position,  which  spoils  the  blind  singleness  of  their  allegiance, 
discloses  the  hopelessness  of  the  task  expected  from  them, 
and  often  destroys  their  antipathy  to  the  noble  revolutionary 
foe.  It  is  the  vainest  of  hopes,  that  a  body  of  clergy,  brought 
up  to  the  culture  of  the  nineteenth  century,  can  abide  by  the 
Christianity  of  the  sixteenth  or  of  the  second ;  if  they  may 
not  preserve  its  essence  by  translation  into  other  forms  of 
thought,  they  will  abandon  it,  in  proportion  as  they  are  clear- 
sighted and  veracious,  as  a  dialect  grown  obsolete.  The 
number  accordingly  is  constantly  increasing,  in  every  college 
capable  of  training  a  rich  intellect,  of  candidates  for  the  min- 
istry forced  by  their  doubts  into  lay  professions,  and  carrying 
thither  the  powerful  influence,  in  the  same  direction,  of  learn- 
ing and  accomplishment.  The  higher  offices  of  education  are, 
to  no  slight  extent,  in  the  hands  of  these  deserters  of  the 
Church ;  and  through  the  tutor  in  the  family,  or  the  master  in 
the  school,  or  the  professor  in  the  lecture-room,  contact  and 
sympathy  are  established  between  the  best  portions  of  the 
new  generation,  and  a  kind  of  thought  and  culture  with  which 
the  authorized  theology  cannot  co-exist.  College  friend.-hips, 
foreign  travel,  current  literature,  familiarize  all  educated  young 
men  with  the  phenomenon  of  scepticism,  and  in  a  way  most 
likely  to  disenchant  it  of  its  terrors.  Thus  by  innumerable 
channels  it  enters  the  middle  cla-^s  at  the  intellectual  end  of 
their  life,  assuming  in  general  the  form  of  historic  and  criti- 


358  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

cal  doubt ;  while  from  below,  from  the  classes  born  and  bred 
amid  the  whirl  of  machinery,  and  shaped  in  their  very  imagi- 
nation by  the  tyranny  of  the  power-loom,  it  pushes  up  in  the 
ruder  form  of  material  fatalism.  The  intermediate  enclosure, 
safe  in  the  dull  innocence  of  an  unsuspected  creed,  is  growing 
narrower  every  day ;  and,  though  reserved  to  the  last  for  its 
hour  of  temptation,  will  be  the  least  prepared  to  win  its 
victory. 

No  one  who  appreciates  the  real  sources  of  a  healthy 
national  life,  and  knows  what  to  expect  from  the  dissolution 
of  ancient  faiths,  can  look  without  anxiety  at  a  prospect  like 
this ;  especially  in  a  country  whose  religious  institutions,  rigid 
with  usage,  overloaded  with  interests,  charged  with  the  be- 
quests of  the  past,  are  manifestly  unequal  to  the  crisis,  and, 
in  their  attempt  to  train  the  affections  of  the  Future,  wield 
every  power  but  the  right  one,  and  are  indeed  already  regard- 
ed, like  the  Court  of  Chancery  with  its  wards,  as  a  dry  nur- 
sery for  grown  babies.  A  people  that  reverences  nothing  — 
nothing  at  least  that  stretches  a  common  heaven  over  all  — 
has  lost  its  natural  unity.  Incipient  decay  is  spreading 
through  the  secret  cement  of  its  civilization,  which,  far  from 
bearing  the  weight  of  further  growth,  precariously  holds  its 
existing  mass  together.  So  far  we  are  entirely  at  one  with 
those  who  see  something  to  deplore  in  the  "  Eclipse  of  Faith," 
and  something  to  desire  in  the  "  Restoration  of  Belief."  They 
do  not  overrate  the  evils  of  a  state  of  society  in  which,  if  you 
think  with  the  wise,  you  must  cease  to  believe  with  the  vul- 
gar. We  would  join  with  them,  heart  and  hand,  in  the  effort 
to  terminate  this  fatal  discrepancy,  and  find  some  language  of 
devotion  and  aspiration,  veracious  alike  from  the  lips  of  the 
richest  knowledge  and  the  most  primitive  simplicity.  But 
when,  like  the  author  whose  publication  is  before  us,  they 
would  abolish  the  discrepancy  by  simply  reinstating  the  taught 
in  the  creed  of  the  untaught ;  when  they  insist  on  the  surren- 
der without  terms  of  modern  philosophy  and  criticism  to  the 
"unabated"  authority  of  the  Bible;  when  they  pretend  to 
wipe  out  from  calculation  all  the  theological  researches  of  the 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  359 

last  half-century,  as  if  they  were  mere  ciphers  made  in  sport 
on  the  tablet  of  history,  and  had  no  effect  on  our  computed 
place  at  all,  —  we  separate  sorrowfully  from  them,  largely 
sympathizing  with  their  wish,  but  wholly  despairing  of  their 
method.  The  received  theory  of  the  origin  of  Christianity 
from  agencies  exclusively  divine,  and  of  the  infallible  charac- 
ter of  the  canonical  books,  can  no  more  be  "  restored,"  than 
Roman  history  can  be  put  back  to  its  state  before  Niebuhr's 
time,  or  Greek  mythology  be  treated  as  if  Heyne  and  Ottfried 
Miiller  had  never  lived.  The  present  age  is  not  more  dis- 
tinguished by  its  advance  in  the  material  arts,  than  by  its  as- 
tonishing progress  in  the  interpretation  and  true  painting  of 
the  past ;  a  Boeckh  or  a  Grote  carries  in  his  mind  a  picture  of 
Athenian  life  in  the  days  of  Pericles  more  perfect,  it  is  prob- 
able, than  could  be  formed  by  Plutarch  or  Longinus ;  and  it 
would  be  strange  if  the  Christian  era  —  certainly  the  object 
of  the  most  elaborated  study  —  were  the  only  one  to  escape 
the  work  of  reconstruction,  or  to  undergo  it  without  consider- 
able change.  The  limits  of  that  change  are  at  present  defina- 
ble by  no  consentient  estimate ;  but  that  they  are  such  as  to 
remove  the  old  lines  of  Christian  defence,  and  require  the 
choice  of  more  open  ground,  can  no  longer  be  denied,  except 
by  the  astute  consistency  of  a  Romanist  hierarchy,  and  the 
innocent  unconsciousness  of  English  sects.  When  the  time 
shall  come  for  a  dispassionate  history  of  the  first  two  centu- 
ries,—  a  history  which,  resolving  the  canon  back  into  the 
general  mass  of  early  Christian  literature,  shall  find  an  origi- 
nal clew  for  tradition,  instead  of  accepting  one  from  its  post- 
humous hand,  —  which  shall  detect  opinions  before  they  were 
heretic  or  orthodox,  and  trace  the  several  streams  of  tributary 
thought  to  their  confluence  in  a  determinate  Christianity,  — 
the  narrowness  of  our  present  polemic  will  be  apparent  of  it- 
self; its  fears  and  triumphs  be  regarded  with  a  smile ;  and 
many,  both  of  its  positive  and  negative  results,  will  vanish 
from  the  interests  of  religion,  and  be  absorbed  in  a  higher 
view  of  the  relation  between  the  Divine  and  Human  in  this 
world. 


360  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

We  had  hoped  at  first  that  the  author  of  "  The  Restoration 
of  Belief"  was  about  to  take  up  the  problem  of  Christianity 
with  a  real  appreciation  of  its  altered  conditions,  and  with  un- 
affected justice  towards  those  who  cannot  solve  it  like  himself. 
His  present  essay  is  but  the  commencement  of  a  series,  de- 
signed to  arrest  the  progress  of  educated  scepticism,  to  expose 
the  sophistries  of  modern  criticism,  and  re-establish  the  plen- 
ary authority,  as  oracles  of  faith,  of  the  Hebrew  and  the 
Christian  Scriptures.  It  would  perhaps  be  unreasonable  to 
complain  that  his  argument  does  not  march  very  far  in  this 
first  movement ;  and  engages  us  rather  by  the  stateliness  of 
its  step,  than  by  the  clearness  of  its  direction.  Nevertheless, 
we  do  think  that  the  discursive  license  of  introductory  expo- 
sition is  carried  by  him  to  an  extreme  which  promises  ill  for 
the  exactitude  of  his  method.  At  the  outset  he  declares  that 
the  difficulties  which  embarrass  modern  faith  go  down  to  the 
very  depths  of  philosophy,  and  can  be  resolved  only  by  reach- 
ing the  ultimate  roots  of  thought.  Yet  he  remains  on  the 
upper  surface  of  history,  and,  without  once  hinting  how  this 
is  to  lead  him  to  the  pith  of  the  controversy,  dwells  only  on 
facts  which  are  undisputed,  and  his  conception  of  which  might 
be  as  readily  gathered  from  Gibbon  as  from  Neander.  Like 
many  writers  whose  eye  is  caught  by  grandeur  of  effect,  and 
whose  imagination  is  sensitive  to  wonder,  he  is  fascinated  by 
the  moment  in  human  affairs  when  the  Roman  Empire  was 
exactly  poised  between  the  forces  of  external  unity  and  of 
internal  decay,  and  the  political  organism  of  the  Past,  so 
august  in  its  mass  and  its  proportions,  held  no  soul  but  the 
young  spirit  of  the  Future.  Of  this  crisis,  assigned  to  the 
reign  of  Alexander  Severus,  our  author  presents  an  impres- 
sive and,  we  believe,  a  faithful  sketch.  Amid  the  splendor, 
the  misery,  the  decay  of  belief  and  hope,  the  universal  incer- 
titude of  that  period,  there  emerges  into  notice  the  beautiful 
and  beneficent  phenomenon  of  a  real  Faith,  —  a  Faith  that 
can  live,  a  Faith  that  can  die.  The  inevitable  conflict  be- 
tween this  new  power  and  the  Pagan  prerogatives  of  the 
Csesars  is  well  brought  out  by  the  essayist ;  and  the  victory 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  361 

of  Christianity  is  justly  ascribed  to  the  peculiar  character  of 
the  religion,  as  a  feeling  directed  to  a  PERSON  rather  than  the 
simple  assent  to  an  IDEA.  It  was  the  force  of  this  personal 
feeling  which  first  awakened  in  men  the  sentiment  of  obliga- 
tion in  regard  to  religious  truth,  and  substituted  faithful  vera- 
city for  indifferentism  and  laxity  of  profession.  The  author 
thus  sums  up  the  positions  which  he  regards  the  present  essay 
as  establishing :  — 

"  That  the  Christian  communities  did,  during  the  period 
that  we  have  had  in  view,  make  and  maintain  a  protest 
against  the  idol-worship  of  the  times,  which  protest,  severe  as 
it  was  in  its  conditions,  at  length  won  a  place  in  the  world  for 
a  purer  theology,  and  set  the  civilized  races  free  from  the  de- 
grading superstitions  of  the  Greek  Mythology. 

"  That  in  the  course  of  this  arduous  struggle,  and  as  an 
unobserved  yet  inevitable  consequence  of  it,  a  New  Principle 
came  to  be  recognized,  and  a  New  Feeling  came  to  govern 
the  minds  of  men,  which  principle  and  feeling  conferred  upon 
the  individual  man,  however  low  his  rank,  socially  or  intel- 
lectually, a  dignity  unknown  to  classical  antiquity  ;  and  which 
yet  must  be  the  basis  of  every  moral  advancement  we  can 
desire,  or  think  of  as  possible. 

"  That  the  struggle  whence  resulted  these  two  momentous 
consequences,  affecting  the  welfare  of  men  for  ever,  was 
entered  upon  and  maintained  on  the  ground  of  a  definite  per- 
suasion, or  Belief,  of  which  a  PERSON  was  the  object. 

"  That  this  belief  toward  a  person  embraced  attributes,  not 
only  of  superhuman  excellence  and  wisdom,  but  also  of  super- 
human POWER  and  AUTHORITY.  If  we  take  the  materials 
before  us  as  our  guide,  it  will  not  be  possible  to  disengage  the 
history  from  these  ideas  of  superhuman  dignity." —  p.  106. 

These  positions  we  certainly  conceive  to  be  unassailable. 
But  they  lie  so  completely  out  of  the  field  of  modern  doubt 
and  controversy,  that  we  are  at  a  loss  to  imagine  what  possi- 
ble use  the  author  can  make  of  them.  The  general  features 
of  the  Christian  faith,  and  the  character  of  the  Church,  had 
assumed  in  the  third  century  a  determinate  form,  about  which 
31 


362  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

there  is  no  important  question  between  believer  and  unbeliev- 
er. Who  would  deny  that  the  disciples  for  whom  Clement  of 
Alexandria  and  Origen  wrote,  whom  Tertullian  and  Minucius 
Felix  defended,  and  to  whose  institutes  Cyprian  was  a  con- 
vert, believed  in  Jesus  Christ  as  a  person  at  once  historical 
and  divine,  and  were  strengthened  by  that  belief  to  the  en- 
durance of  martyrdom  ?  The  real  and  only  difficulties  lie 
higher  up,  in  the  attempt  to  trace  the  sources  and  earlier 
varieties  of  this  belief;  and  if  our  author  can  show  that,  in 
winding  its  way  through  two  centuries,  and  traversing  several 
distinct  regions  of  thought,  it  dropped  or  rounded  off  no  prim- 
itive facts,  and  became  mingled  with  no  foreign  ideas,  —  if  he 
can  establish  the  essential  constancy  and  uniformity,  from  the 
first,  of  the  tradition  and  doctrine  which  obtained  ascendency 
at  last,  —  he  will  indeed  reduce  legitimate  scepticism  within 
very  narrow  limits,  and  deserve  a  niche  in  the  Valhalla  of 
critical  renown.  But  if  he  contemplates  clearing  these  cen- 
turies by  an  argumentative  leap ;  if,  from  the  martyr  faith  of 
an  age  later  than  the  Antonines,  he  means  to  conclude  the 
certainty  of  the  Incarnation  two  hundred  years  before,  —  then 
we  must  say,  he  attempts  a  logical  feat  which  puts  to  shame 
the  cautious  steps  of  such  reasoners  as  Paley,  Marsh,  and 
Whately.  The  catena  of  well-linked  testimonies,  with  its 
bridge  of  safe  footing,  which  they  have  endeavored  to  sling 
across  the  chasm  of  the  post-apostolic  age,  is  but  a  paltry  cow- 
ardice of  ecclesiastic  engineering  to  one  who  can  pass  the  gulf 
upon  the  wing  of  inference.  An  advocate  is  intelligible,  and 
proceeds  upon  admitted  rules  of  evidence,  who  says  with 
these  earlier  divines  :  "  Here  are  the  writings  of  Paul,  of  John, 
of  Matthew,  and  of  other  men  who  were  present  at  the  events 
they  relate  or  assume ;  whose  lives  were  turned  into  a  new 
channel  by  their  influence ;  and  who  went  to  prison  and  to 
death  rather  than  deny  them.  They  positively  declare  that 
they  witnessed  the  most  stupendous  miracles,  and,  after  their 
Master  had  been  visibly  taken  up  through  the  clouds,  them- 
selves habitually  exercised  the  same  supernatural  power. 
You  must  admit  that  the  guaranties  of  testimony  can  go  no 


THE    RESTORATION    OP    BELIEF.  363 

further:  surrender  yourself  therefore  to  the  Gospel."  This 
is  an  argument  which  accomplishes  all  that  is  possible  with 
historical  evidence  in  such  a  case  ;  and  were  its  allegations  of 
fact  sustainable,  it  would  still  be  the  best  form  into  which  the 
reasoning  could  be  thrown.  Unfortunately,  we  can  no  longer 
feel  assured  that  any  first-hand  testimony  exists,  as  a  distin- 
guishable element,  in  the  narrative  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;  so  that  we  can  regard  them  only  as  monuments  of  the 
state  of  Christian  tradition  during  a  secondary  period.  Still, 
this  flaw  is  not  repaired  by  striking  into  the  course  of  belief 
three  or  four  generations  lower  down,  and  substituting  the 
"  Martyr  literature "  of  the  third  century  for  the  Evangelist 
memorials  of  the  second  or  the  first.  And  when  our  author 
transfers  to  Clement  and  Origen  the  praise  of  unaffected  sim- 
plicity usually  awarded  to  the  Apostolic  writers,  and  actually 
presents  it  as  sufficient  proof  of  divine  attributes  in  Christ,  we 
can  only  suppose  that,  in  his  opinion,  some  truths  are  too  good 
to  have  any  bad  way  to  them.  What  else  can  be  said  of  the 
following  mode  of  inference  ? 

"  Much  do  we  meet  with  in  these  writers  that  indicates  in- 
firmity of  judgment  or  a  false  taste ;  yet  does  there  pervade 
them  a  marked  simplicity,  a  grave  sincerity,  a  quietness  of 
tone,  when  HE  is  spoken  of  whom  they  acknowledge  as  LORD. 
If  there  be  one  characteristic  of  these  ancient  writings  that 
is  uniform,  it  is  the  calm,  affectionate,  and  reverential  tone  in 
which  the  Martyr  Church  speaks  of  THE  SAVIOUR  CHRIST  ! 

"I  am  perfectly  sure  that,  if  you  could  absolutely  banish 
from  your  mind  all  thought  of  the  inferences  and  the  conse- 
quences resulting  from  your  admissions,  you  would  not,  after 
perusing  this  body  of  Martyr  literature,  fall  into  the  enormity 
of  attributing  the  notions  entertained  of  CHRIST,  as  invested 
with  Divine  attributes,  to  any  such  source  as  '  exaggeration,' 
or  'extravagance,'  or  to  'Orientalism,'  or  'enlarged  Plato- 
nism.'  Exaggeration  and  inflation  have  their  own  style  :  it  is 
not  difficult  to  recognize  it.  No  characteristic  of  thought  or 
language  is  more  obvious.  You  will  fail  in  your  endeavor  to 
show  that  this  characteristic  does  attach  to  the  writings  in 


364  THE   RESTORATION    OP   BELIEF. 

question  ;  and  why  should  you  make  such  an  attempt  ?  There 
can  be  no  inducement  to  do  so,  unless  it  appears  to  be  the 
only  means  of  escaping  from  some  consequence  which  we 
dislike."  — p.  107. 

Our  author  professedly  opposes  "  Ancient  Christianity  "  to 
modern  scepticism,  because  "  History,"  as  he  observes,  "  is 
solid  ground,"  and  no  region  of  atmospheric  phantasms,  births 
from  the  refracted  rays  of  metaphysic  light.  History,  however, 
is  solid  ground  only  so  far  as  it  is  really  explored ;  and  the 
trending  of  the  land  and  curving  of  the  shore  in  one  latitude 
of  time  no  more  enables  us  to  lay  down  the  map  of  another, 
than  an  anchorage  at  the  Ganges'  mouth  would  enable  us  to 
paint  the  gorges  of  the  Himalayas,  and  distinguish  the  real 
from  the  fabulous  sources  of  the  sacred  stream.  To  take  us 
into  the  basilicas  and  show  us  how  Christians  worshipped  in 
the  days  of  Alexander  Severus,  to  introduce  us  to  the  Pro- 
consul's court  and  bid  us  witness  their  refusal  of  divine  hom- 
age to  Caesar's  image,  and  then  ask  us  whether  a  faith  like 
this  could  have  had  any  origin  but  ONK,  —  this  is  not  history, 
but  the  mere  evasion  of  history.  We  want  to  know,  not  what 
must  have  been  the  source,  but  what  was  the  source,  of  the 
great  moral  power  that  rose  upon  the  world  as  Rome  declined. 
Whoever  wishes  to  shut  out  human  ideas  and  natural  agen- 
cies from  participation  in  the  matter,  must  go  patiently  through 
the  entire  remains  of  the  early  Christian  literature ;  must 
trace  the  conflict  between  the  Hebrew  and  the  Pauline  Gos- 
pel ;  find  a  place  for  the  peculiar  version  of  the  religion  given 
by  the  Evangelist  John  ;  fix  the  limits  of  Ebionitism,  of  Chili- 
asm,  of  Docetism ;  and  show  that  these  modes  and  varieties  of 
doctrine  stop  short  of  the  substance  of  the  early  faith,  and  do 
not  enter  the  canonical  Scriptures  with  any  disturbance  of 
their  historic  certainty.  Nothing  of  this  kind  do  we  expect 
from  our  author.  For  he  entertains  a  conception,  respecting 
the  logic  of  Christian  evidence,  which,  however  prevalent 
among  English  divines,  betrays  in  our  judgment  a  mind  not 
at  all  at  home  with  the  present  conditions  of  the  problem. 
He  seems  to  think  that  we  am  first  prove  the  historic  truth 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  365 

of  the  Scriptures  in  general ;  and  then  get  rid  of  the  difficul- 
ties in  particular ;  and  requires  us,  in  obedience  to  this  pe- 
dantic law  of  logical  etiquette,  to  carry  into  our  investigation 
of  every  successive  perplexity  the  rigid  assumption  that  the 
writings  with  which  we  deal  are  "  inspired,"  and  their  contents 
of  "  Divine  authority." 

"  When  a  collection  of  historic  materials,  bearing  upon  a 
particular  series  of  events,  is  brought  forward,  it  will  follow, 
upon  the  supposition  that  those  events  have,  on  the  whole, 
been  truly  reported,  that  any  hypothesis,  the  object  of  which 
is  to  make  it  seem  probable  that  no  such  events  did  take 
place,  must  involve  absurdities  which  will  be  more  or  less 
glaring.  But  then,  after  the  truth  of  the  history  has  been 
established,  and  when  the  trustworthiness  of  the  materials  has 
been  admitted,  as  we  proceed  to  apply  a  rigid  criticism  to 
ambiguous  passages,  we  shall  undoubtedly  encounter  a  crowd 
of  perplexing  disagreements  ;  and  we  shall  find  employment 
enough  for  all  our  acumen,  and  trial  enough  of  our  patience, 
in  clearing  our  path.  And  yet  no  amount  of  discourage- 
ments, such  as  these,  will  warrant  our  falling  back  upon  a 
supposition  which  we  have  already  discarded  as  incoherent 
and  absurd."  —  p.  110. 

We  cannot  call  this  a  vicious  canon  of  historical  criticism ; 
for  it  simply  excludes  historical  criticism  altogether.  The 
critic's  work  is  not  a  process  which  can  go  on  generically, 
without  addressing  itself  to  any  particular  matters  at  all,  and 
vindicate  comprehensive  conclusions  in  blindness  towards 
the  cases  they  comprise.  The  judgment  that,  on  the  whole, 
a  certain  book  contains  a  true  report  of  events,  can  only  be  a 
provisional  assumption,  founded  on  natural  and  childlike  trust, 
and  can  claim  no  scientific  character,  till  it  comes  out  as  a 
collective  inference  from  an  investigation  in  detail  of  the  nar- 
rative's contents.  No  doubt,  the  bare  fact  of  the  existence  of 
Christianity  as  a  great  social  phenomenon  in  the  age  of  the 
Antonines,  may  afford  evidence  enough  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
was  no  imaginary  being ;  the  genius  of  the  religion,  and  the 
traditional  picture  of  its  author,  may  indicate  the  cast  of  his 
31* 


366  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

mind  and  the  intensity  of  his  influence  ;  the  institutions  of  the 
Church  may  betray  its  origin  in  Palestine,  and  the  approxi- 
mate date  of  its  birth.  But  these  conclusions,  founded  en- 
tirely on  reasonings  from  human  causation,  can  never  carry 
us  into  the  superhuman  ;  or  enable  us  to  say  more  respecting 
the  memorials  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  than  that  they  may  be  true, 
and  do  not  forfeit,  ab  initio,  their  title  to  examination  by  fun- 
damental anachronism,  misplacement,  and  moral  incongruity. 
How  far  the  existence  of  this  prima  facie  case  falls  short  of 
"  establishing  the  truth  of  the  history,"  and  "  the  trustworthi- 
ness of  the  materials,"  we  need  not  point  out  to  any  one  ac- 
customed to  deal  with  questions  of  evidence.  And  as  for  the 
great  proposition,  that  "the  Gospel  of  Christ  is  a  supernatu- 
rally  authenticated  gift,"  we  cannot  imagine  how  it  is  to  be 
proved  in  general,  without  research  into  a  single  miracle.  Is 
it  indifferent  to  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  that  the  only  two 
accounts  of  the  birth  and  infancy  of  Jesus  are  hopelessly  at 
variance  with  each  other  ?  Is  the  evidence  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion unaffected  by  the  discrepancies  on  which  harmonists  have 
spent  a  fruitless  ingenuity  ?  Are  we  as  sure  that,  in  reading 
the  Apostles'  works,  we  have  to  do  with  "  inspired  writers," 
as  if  they  had  not  made  any  false  announcements  about  the 
end  of  the  world  ?  What  does  our  author  mean  by  admitting 
these,  things  as  "  difficulties,"  yet  denying  them  any  just  influ- 
ence in  abatement  of  our  confidence  ?  He  may  form  one  es- 
timate of  their  weight,  and  his  opponent  another ;  but  in 
neither  case  can  they  be  postponed  for  treatment  in  a  mere 
appendix  to  the  discussion  of  Christian  evidence :  they  are 
of  the  very  pith  of  the  whole  question,  and,  so  long  as  they 
lie  in  reserve  as  quantities  of  unknown  magnitude  and  direc- 
tion of  influence,  render  historical  belief  and  unbelief  alike 
irrational. 

Nor  can  we  for  a  moment  allow  that  the  failure  of  ever  so 
many  "  German  theories "  to  give  a  satisfactory  account  of 
the  origin  of  Christianity,  is  any  good  reason  for  contented 
acquiescence  in  the  received  doctrine.  Our  author  insists, 
that  we  must  make  our  definitive  choice  between  some  mod- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BKLIEF.  367 

ern  hypothesis  and  the  Evangelical  tradition ;  and  either  take 
the  facts  as  they  are  handed  down  to  us,  or  else  replace  them 
by  some  better  representation.  By  what  right  does  he  im- 
pose on  us  such  an  alternative  necessity?  Is  the  critic  dis- 
qualified for  detecting  false  history,  because  he  cannot,  at  his 
distance,  write  the  true  ?  Is  it  a  thing  unknown,  as  a  product 
of  scholarship,  that  fabulous  elements  disclose  themselves  amid 
the  memorials  of  fact  ?  and  is  it  not  an  acknowledged  gain 
to  part  with  an  error,  though  only  in  favor  of  an  ignorance  ? 
If  a  modern  hypothesis  as  to  the  mode  in  which  the  religion 
arose  may  "  break  down  "  by  mere  internal  incoherence  and 
improbability,  why  may  not  the  ancient  account,  if  it  should 
be  chargeable  with  similar  imperfections,  be  liable  to  the  same 
fate  ?  It  is  surely  conceivable  that  all  the  finished  represen- 
tations we  possess,  —  Hebrew  and  Alexandrine,  as  well  as 
German,  —  furnish,  more  or  less,  an  ideal  and  conjectural 
history  of  the  infancy  of  Christendom ;  and  that  the  repro- 
duction of  that  time  may  not  only  be  now  impossible,  but  have 
already  become  so  ere  a  hundred  years  were  gone.  The 
baffling  of  one  solution  implies  therefore  no  triumph  of  anoth- 
er; and  if  ,the  tradition  on  which  we  stand  be  insecure,  our 
position  is  not  improved  by  clipping  the  wings  of  every  ad- 
venturous hypothesis  on  which  we  had  thought  to  escape  the 
common  ground. 

Our  author  cannot  then  change  the  venue  of  the  great  Chris- 
tian cause  from  the  first  century  to  the  third,  and,  on  the  evi- 
dence present  there,  give  even  preliminary  judgment.  The 
conflict  between  the  new  religion  and  the  old  which  charac- 
terized that  period,  he  paints  with  striking  and  truthful  effect ; 
and,  contrasting  the  severe  and  holy  veracity  of  martyred  dis- 
ciples with  the  careless  indifference  of  Paganism  to  religious 
truth,  he  rightly  refers  the  superiority  of  the  Christians  to 
their  faith  in  a  Person,  instead  of  mere  assent  to  an  Opinion. 
Is  it,  however,  correct  to  regard  this  as  original  and  exclusive 
to  the  Gospel,  and  to  set  it  on  the  forehead  of  the  Church  as 
the  very  mark  of  her  distinctive  divinity?  We  think  not. 
The  same  feature  is  manifest  in  Judaism,  to  which  again  it 


368  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

belongs,  not  as  a  peculiarity,  but  in  common  with  every  faith 
whose  Only  God  is  the  apotheosis  of  humanity.  It  is  the  one 
grand  moral  characteristic  of  genuine  Theism,  as  opposed  to 
Pantheism ;  rendering  it  more  than  the  enthusiasm  of  poetry, 
the  earnestness  of  philosophy,  the  inspiration  of  genius,  and 
constituting  it,  in  the  deepest  sense,  Religion.  Nor  is  the 
ground  of  the  distinction  far  to  seek.  Religion,  in  its  ultimate 
essence,  is  a  sentiment  of  Reverence  for  a  Higher  than  our- 
selves. Higher  than  ourselves,  however,  can  none  be,  that 
have  not  what  is  most  august  among  our  endowments ;  none, 
therefore,  by  reason  of  size,  of  strength,  of  duration ;  none 
simply  by  beauty  or  by  skill ;  none  even  by  largeness  of  dis- 
cerning thought,  but  only  by  free  and  realizing  preference  of 
the  most  Just  and  Good.  A  Being  of  living  Will  can  alone 
be  nobler  than  myself,  lift  me  above  the  level  of  my  actual 
mind  by  looking  at  my  latent  nature,  and  emancipate  me 
into  the  captivity  of  worship.  In  other  words,  reverence  can 
attach  itself  exclusively  to  a  Person  ;  it  cannot  direct  itself 
on  what  is  impersonal,  —  on  physical  facts,  on  unconscious 
laws,  on  necessary  forces,  on  inanimate  objects  and  their  re- 
lations, on  space,  though  it  be  infinite,  on  duration,  though  it 
be  eternal.  These  all,  even  when  they  rule  us,  are  lower  than 
ourselves  ;  they  may  evade  our  knowledge,  defy  our  power, 
overwhelm  our  imagination,  but  never  rise  to  be  our  equals, 
or  conspire  to  furnish  even  the  symbol  of  our  God.  The 
mere  deification  of  Nature,  the  recognition  of  oneness  pervad- 
ing her  variety,  the  sense  of  an  absolute  ground  abiding  be- 
hind her  transient  phenomena,  may  supply  a  faith  adequate  to 
the  awakening  of  wonder  and  the  apprehension  of  ideal  beau- 
ty, but  not  to  the  practical  consecration  of  life  ;  glorifying  the 
universe  as  a  temple  of  Art,  but  railing  off  within  it  no  oratory 
of  Conscience.  In  order  to  extract  anything  like  a  religion 
of  conduct  from  this  type  of  belief,  its  hierophants  are  obliged 
to  approach  as  near  as  they  can  to  the  language  of  proper 
Theism,  and  not  even  despise  typographical  aid  for  pushing 
personification  to  the  verge  of  personality ;  uttering  various 
warnings  not  to  neglect  the  "  intentions  of  Nature,"  or  insult 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  369 

the  "  Relentless  Veracities,"  and  inviting  sundry  offenders  to 
blush  before  "  the  Eternal  Powers."  The  whole  force  of  such 
expressions  is  evidently  due  to  the  false  semblance  of  living 
thought  and  will  with  which  they  clothe  the  conceptions  of 
mere  abstract  relations  or  physical  tendencies.  These  rich 
tints  are  no  self-color,  but  a  borrowed  light  reflected  from  a 
grander  Presence  studiously  withdrawn  from  view  ;  and  when 
their  gloss  is  gone,  no  positive  residuum  is  found,  but  a  doc- 
trine of  hope  and  fear,  without  any  element  of  Duty.  It  were 
a  mockery,  an  inanity,  to  bid  a  man  spend  his  affections  on 
hypostatized  laws  that  neither  know  nor  answer  him.  In  his 
crimes,  it  is  not  the  heavy  irons  of  his  prison,  but  the  deep 
eye  of  his  judge,  from  which  he  shrinks ;  and  in  his  repentance 
he  weeps,  not  upon  the  lap  of  Nature,  but  at  the  feet  of  God. 
In  his  allegiance,  his  vow  is  made,  not  to  the  certainty  of 
facts,  but  to  the  majesty  of  Right,  and  the  authority  of  an  In- 
finitely Just ;  and  his  acts  of  trust  are  directed  by  no  means 
to  the  steadiness  of  creation's  ways,  but  to  the  faithfulness  of 
a  perfect  Mind.  In  short,  all  the  sentiments  characteristic 
of  religion  presuppose  a  Personal  Object,  and  assert  their 
power  only  where  Manhood  is  the  type  of  Godhead.  This 
condition  was  imported,  or  rather  continued,  from  the  Hebrew 
to  the  Christian  system ;  and  brought  with  it  the  devout  loy- 
alty of  heart,  the  singleness  of  service,  the  incorruptible  hero- 
ism of  endurance,  which  had  encountered  Antiochus  Epi- 
phanes  at  Jerusalem,  as  it  now  met  Pliny  in  Bithynia,  and 
Quadratus  at  Smyrna.  The  Paganism  of  the  Empire,  on  the 
other  hand,  failed  entirely  of  this  condition.  It  was  a  mere 
nature-worship,  expressive  of  the  political  dynamics  by  which, 
through  the  award  of  a  mysterious  necessity,  Rome  had  be- 
come the  centre  of  the  world.  If,  among  the  deities  whose 
congress  was  now  assembled  on  the  Tiber,  there  were  any 
which  once,  in  their  indigenous  seats,  had  commanded  the  full 
moral  faith,  and  touched  the  true  theistic  devotion,  of  a  peo- 
ple, that  time  had  passed ;  and  the  conquered  tribes  suffered 
a  more  fatal  loss  when  the  victorious  city  adopted  their  re- 
ligion, than  when  she  crushed  their  liberty.  Removed  to 


370  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

Rome,  the  rites  of  a  provincial  worship  expressed  nothing 
except  that  its  gods  were  gods  no  more,  but  had  descended 
from  divine  monarchic  rights  to  a  place  among  a  pensioned 
hierarchy.  Vanquished  divinities  inevitably  become  delegat- 
ed powers  of  nature,  and  resign  their  sceptre  to  the  sovereign 
they  are  compelled  to  own.  As  the  administration  of  the  Em- 
pire embraced  a  congeries  of  checked  nationalities,  so  did  its 
pantheon  include  a  collection  of  extinguished  religions.  While 
as  Imperator  the  head  of  the  state  was  the  embodiment  of  its 
unity  by  natural  force,  as  Divus  he  represented  its  unity  by 
preternatural  sanction ;  and  the  divine  honors  paid  to  him 
were  the  acknowledgment  of  a  necessity  more  than  human 
in  the  culminating  majesty  of  Rome.  These  honors  would 
be  freely  rendered  to  him  by  those  who  looked  on  all  realized 
existence,  on  everything  charged  with  force  enough  to  come 
up  and  be,  as  equally  decreed  by  "  the  Eternal  Powers,"  — 
equally  divine.  Such  homage  would  appear  to  them  the 
mere  expression  of  a  fact,  and  a  graceful  owning  of  mysteri- 
ous fates  in  its  production;  and  no  scruple  could  withhold 
them  from  an  act  which  contradicted  nothing  in  their  mind, 
and  did  but  fling  a  breath  of  pious  incense  around  the  thing 
that  veritably  was.  It  were  absurd  to  expect  the  protest  of 
a  martyr  from  a  man  whose  religion  you  cannot  contradict ; 
who  will  see  a  God  wherever  you  ask  him ;  and  whose  wor- 
ship asserts  nothing  but  that,  a  phenomenon  being  there,  an 
occult  power  is  behind  it.  A  faith  of  this  sort  is  deficient,  as 
an  Hegelian  would  say,  "  in  the  moment  of  negation  "  /  it  is 
all  unobstructed  affirmation,  and  can  strike  no  light  because 
it  thus  finds  nothing  to  dash  itself  against.  But  let  the  divine 
element  in  the  universe  cease  to  be  impersonal  and  impar- 
tially coalescent  with  the  whole,  let  it  live  an  Individual  Mind, 
and  the  requisite  antagonism  immediately  appears.  To  the 
Jew,  the  worship  of  Caesar  would  be  no  other  than  high  trea- 
son to  Jehovah,  whose  tool,  whose  whip  of  lightning,  and 
whose  cup  of  consolation  the  Pagan  Emperor  might  become  ; 
but  whose  emblem  and  incarnation  he  could  so  little  be,  that 
he  rather  stood  defiantly  at  the  head  of  the  opposing  realm, 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  371 

and,  even  when  forced  to  be  the  organ,  did  not  cease  to  be 
the  competitor  of  God.  For  opposing  realm  there  must  be, 
wherever  proper  Theism  exists.  Man  feels  that  his  personal 
attributes,  his  will,  his  character,  his  conscience,  demand  con- 
flict for  their  condition,  and  without  the  possibility  of  ill  could 
never  be ;  and  when  he  carries  them  out  into  the  infinite  re- 
gion, to  serve  as  his  image  of  the  Highest,  they  bear  with 
them  ^he  inseparable  shadow  of  evil,  and  give  it  place  in  the 
universe,  as  the  darkness  in  whose  absence  light  would  want 
its  distinction,  the  privative  without  which  the  beauty  of  holi- 
ness were  nothing  positive.  Hence,  expressed  or  unexpressed, 
a  dualism  mingles  with  all  genuine  theistic  faith.  All  is  not 
divine  for  it.  It  has  a  devil's  province  somewhere.  Face  to 
face,  as  Ebal  to  Gerizim,  the  frown  of  blighted  rock  to  the 
smile  of  verdant  heights,  —  hostile  as  the  priest  of  falsehood 
to  the  true  prophet,  —  there  stand  contrasted  in  this  creed 
two  domains  of  the  world,  —  one  surrendered  to  insurgent 
powers,  the  other  reserved  as  the  nursing  ground  from  which 
right  and  truth  shall  be  spread.  To  the  Hebrew,  the  Pagan 
world  was  given  over  to  a  false  allegiance,  and  inspired  with 
diabolical  delusions.  For  him  to  sacrifice  to  the  genius  of 
Caesar,  would  have  been,  therefore,  a  desertion  to  the  enemies 
of  God,  forbidden  by  every  claim  of  faithfulness  and  veracity. 
Thus  we  conceive  that  the  moral  conditions  of  the  martyrs' 
protest  against  idol-worships  were  complete  within  the  limits 
of  Judaism  before  the  mission  of  Christ ;  and  that  the  essence 
of  it  lies,  not  in  the  exclusive  characteristics  of  the  Gospel, 
but  in  the  difference  between  Theistic  reverence  for  a  Per- 
sonal Being,  and  the  Pantheistic  acknowledgment  of  an  im- 
personal divineness.  The  peculiar  function  of  Christianity 
in  this  respect  was  to  become  missionary  to  the  world  of  this 
heroic  fidelity  transmitted  from  the  parent  faith,  and  hitherto 
bounded  by  its  limits ;  and  to  find  a  place  in  the  universal 
conscience  of  civilized  nations  for  the  duty  of  bearing  testi- 
mony, though  with  tortures  and  death,  to  the  pricelessness  of 
truth  and  the  sanctity  of  conviction.  True  it  is  that  the  Gos- 
pel was  qualified  for  this  office  by  directing  human  faith  upon 


372  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

a  Person ;  and  would  have  exercised  no  such  power,  had  it 
been  a  mere  philosophy  presenting  propositions  for  assent, 
instead  of  a  Living  Mind  for  trust  and  reverence.  But  this 
condition  would  have  been  attained  by  the  simple  extension 
of  the  Jewish  Theism.  The  Personality,  which  is  needed  as 
a  centre  of  intense  fealty  and  affection,  is  found  in  the  God 
of  Hebrew  tradition,  and,  for  its  effects  in  kindling  a  martyr 
courage  and  constancy,  did  not  require  to  be  sought  in  the 
historical  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  He,  no  doubt,  as  the  mediate 
expression  of  the  Supreme  Will,  as  the  Being  with  whom 
the  Church  stood  in  direct  contact,  as  the  presence  of  the 
Divine  in  the  Human,  was  the  object  of  the  disciples'  actual 
allegiance.  We  do  not  in  the  least  question  this  as  a  fact, 
but  only  as  a  necessity,  ere  we  can  account  for  the  moral  fea- 
tures of  a  martyr  age. 

In  singling  out,  as  one  of  the  grandest  practical  results  of 
Christianity,  the  recognition  it  has  obtained  for  the  obliga- 
tions of  religious  truth,  our  author  has  rightly  seized  a  char- 
acteristic distinction  of  modern  from  ancient  society.  The 
principle  is  a  real  agency  of  the  first  order  in  history ;  we  do 
not  accuse  him  of  overrating  its  importance,  but  of  mistaking 
its  genealogy.  And  now  we  must  add,  that  if  we  differ  from 
him  as  to  the  source  whence  it  comes,  we  differ  still  more  as 
to  the  issues  whither  it  conducts.  So  inconsiderately  does  he 
allow  himself  to  be  borne  away  by  his  evangelical  zeal,  that  he 
claims  for  the  Gospel,  not  only  the  glory  of  first  revealing,  but 
the  exclusive  right  of  ever  practising,  the  duties  of  religious 
veracity.  None  but  historical  believers  have  the  least  title 
to  attach  any  sacredness  to  their  convictions,  or  to  feel  any  hes- 
itation about  denying  them.  What  business  have  the  authors 
of  the  "  Phases  of  Faith,"  and  the  "  Creed  of  Christendom," 
to  any  better  morality  of  belief  than  Gallio  or  Lucian  ?  If 
they  have  not  fallen  back  into  the  Pagan  indiflferentism,  they 
ought  to  have  done  so,  and  our  author  will  continue  very  in- 
dignant till  they  do.  He  is  offended  with  Mr.  Newman  for 
asking  judgment  on  his  "  argument  and  himself,  as  before 
the  bar  of  God  " ;  and  with  Mr.  Greg  for  saying  that,  in  the 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  373 

process  of  changing  cherished  beliefs,  "  the  pursuit  of  truth  is 
a  daily  martyrdom,"  and  for  giving  "  honor  to  those  who  en- 
counter it,  saddened,  weeping,  trembling,  but  unflinching  still ! " 
And  he  is  not  ashamed  to  declare  that  the  guileless  veracity 
which  in  himself  would  be  a  martyr's  constancy,  would  be  in 
another  an  overweening  conceit.  So  astonishing,  logically 
and  ethically,  are  his  statements  on  this  subject,  and  so  cu- 
riously do  they  determine  his  intellectual  position,  that  we 
must  present  them  in  his  own  words :  — 

"  We  Christian  men  of  this  age,  along  with  our  venerated 
martyr  brethren  of  the  ancient  Church,  in  making  this  profes- 
sion, —  that  we  may  not  lie  to  God,  nor  deny  before  men  our 
inward  conviction  in  matters  of  religion  ;  we  (as  they  did) 
affirm  that  which  is  consistent  within  itself,  and  which,  in  the 
whole  extent  of  its  meaning,  is  certain  and  is  reasonable,  grant 
us  only  our  initial  postulate,  that  Christianity  is  from  heaven. 

"But  how  is  it,  when  this  same  solemn  averment  comes 
from  the  lips  of  those  who  deny  that  postulate,  and  who  scorn 
to  recognize  the  voice  of  God  in  the  BOOK  ?  It  is  just  thus  ; 
and  those  whom  it  concerns  so  to  do,  owe  it  to  the  world  and 
to  themselves  to  make  the  ingenuous  avowal. 

"  In  the  first  place,  the  style  and  the  very  terms  employed 
by  these  writers  in  enouncing  the  fact  of  the  martyrdom  they 
are  undergoing,  are  all  a  flagrant  plagiarism,  and  nothing  bet- 
ter !  A  claim,  in  behalf  of  the  Gospel,  must  be  made  of  what 
is  its  own,  and  which  these  writers,  without  leave  asked,  have 
appropriated.  As  to  every  word  and  phrase  upon  which  the 
significance  of  this  their  profession  turns,  it  must  be  given  up, 
leaving  them  in  possession  of  .so  much  only  of  the  meaning  of 
such  phrases  as  would  have  been  intelligible  to  PLUTARCH,  to 
PORPHYRY,  and  to  M.  AURELIUS.  A  surrender  must  be 
made  of  the  words  CONSCIENCE,  and  TRUTH,  and  RIGHT- 
EOUSNESS, and  SIN  ;  and,  alas !  modern  unbelievers  must  be 
challenged  to  give  me  back  that  ONK  awe-fraught  NAME 
which  they  (must  I  not  plainly  say  so  ?)  have  stolen  out  of 
the  BOOK  ;  when  they  have  frankly  made  this  large  surren- 
der, we  may  return  to  them  the  TO  Qtlov  of  classical  antiquity. 
32 


374  THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

"Yet  this  plagiarism,  as  to  terms,  is  the  smaller  part  of 
that  invasion  of  rights  with  which  the  same  persons  are 
chargeable.  It  is  reasonable,  and  it  is  what  a  good  man  must 
do,  to  suffer  anything  rather  than  deny  a  persuasion,  which 
is  such  that  he  could  not,  if  he  would,  cast  it  off.  So  it  was 
with  the  early  Christian  martyrs ;  their  persuasion  of  the 
truth  of  the  Gospel  had  become  part  of  themselves ;  it  was 
faith  absolute,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word.  The  same 
degree  of  irresistible  persuasion  attaches  to  the  conclusions  of 
mathematical  or  physical  science  ;  but  it  can  never  belong  to 
an  opinion,  or  to  an  undefined  abstract  belief.  A  man  may 
indeed  choose  to  die  rather  than  contradict  his  personal  per- 
suasion of  the  truth  of  an  opinion ;  but  in  doing  so  he  has  no 
right  to  take  to  himself  the  martyr's  style.  So  to  speak  is  to 
exhibit,  not  constancy,  but  opinionativeness,  or  an  overweening 
confidence  in  his  own  reasoning  faculty. 

"  Polycarp  could  not  have  refused  to  die  when  the  only 
alternative  was  to  blaspheme  CHRIST,  his  Lord ;  but  Plutarch 
could  not  have  been  required  to  suffer  in  attestation  of  his 
opinion,  —  good  as  it  was,  —  that  the  poets  have  done  ill  in 
attributing  the  passions  and  the  perturbations  of  human  nature 
to  the  immortal  gods;  nor  Seneca,  in  behalf  of  those  astro- 
nomical and  meteorological  theories  with  which  he  entertains 
himself  and  his  friend  Lucilius. 

"  When  those  who,  after  rejecting  Christianity,  talk  of  suf- 
fering for  the  '  truth  of  God,'  and  speak  as  if  they  were  con- 
science-bound '  toward  God,'  they  must  know  that  they  not 
only  borrow  a  language  which  they  are  not  entitled  to  avail 
themselves  of,  but  that  they  invade  a  ground  of  religious  be- 
lief whereon  they  can  establish  for  themselves  no  right  of 
standing.  They  may  indeed  profess  what  opinion  they  please 
as  to  the  Divine  attributes ;  but  they  cannot  need  to  be  told 
that  which  the  misgivings  of  their  own  hearts  so  often  whisper 
to  them,  that  all  such  opinions  are,  at  the  very  best,  open  to 
debate,  and  must  always  be  indeterminate,  and  that  at  this 
tune  their  own  possession  of  the  opinion  which  just  now  they 
happen  to  cling  to,  is,  in  the  last  degree,  precarious.  How 


THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  375 

then  can  martyrdom  be  transacted  among  those  whose  tread- 
ing is  upon  the  fleecy  clouds  of  undemonstrable  religious  feel- 
ing?"—pp.  92-94. 

If,  being  orthodox,  you  die  at  the  stake,  you  are  a  martyr ; 
if,  being  heretic,  —  why,  then  you  are  a  man  burnt ;  —  a 
doctrine  which  Robert  Hall  compressed  within  the  narrowest 
compass,  when  he  said,  "  It  is  the  saint  which  makes  the  mar- 
tyr, not  the  martyr  the  saint."  This  is  the  very  Gospel  of 
intolerance ;  and  whoever  preaches  it  may  feel  assured  that 
he  can  lend  no  help  in  any  worthy  "  Restoration  of  Belief  " ; 
for  he  is  himself  infected  with  the  most  profound  and  pene- 
trating of  scepticisms,  —  scepticisms  of  moral  realities.  The 
rule,  "  that  we  may  not  lie  to  God,  nor  deny  before  men  our 
inward  conviction  in  matters  of  religion,"  is,  in  our  author's 
view,  the  gift  and  glory  of  Christianity.  Be  it  so.  This  rule 
either  holds  for  all  men  at  all  times,  or  it  does  not ;  if  there 
be  persons  who,  notwithstanding  it,  may  lie  to  God,  and  deny 
their  inward  conviction,  then  the  Scriptures,  in  communicat- 
ing it,  have  revealed  no  universal  principle  of  duty,  no  obli- 
gation having  its  seat  in  the  nature  of  things  and  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  human  soul,  but  a  mere  sectional  by-law,  an  ar- 
bitrary precept  for  the  security  and  good  ordering  of  one 
exclusive  community.  Then  must  we  talk  of  it  no  more  so 
exceedingly  proudly,  as  if  it  were  a  hidden  truth  revealed,  a 
latent  beauty  opened ;  it  is  no  part  of  the  holy  legislation  of 
the  universe,  but  a  statutory  enactment  under  which  we  fall, 
or  from  which  we  escape,  as  we  pass  in  or  out  at  the  door  of 
a  certain  historical  belief.  Need  we  say  that  this  side  of  the 
alternative  strips  Christianity  of  every  pretension  to  be  a 
moral  revelation  at  all  ?  If,  to  take  the  other  side,  the  rule 
in  question  does  hold  for  all  men,  then  it  is  no  less  binding  on 
All-.  Newman  and  Mr.  Greg  than  on  our  author ;  and  in  bow- 
ing to  its  authority  and  owning  its  sanctity,  they  render  a 
homage  as  devoutly  true  as  his,  only  different  in  this,  that, 
while  they  feel  no  disturbance  from  his  kneeling  in  the  sanctu- 
ary at  their  side,  he  cannot  be  at  peace  till  he  has  sprung  to 
his  feet  and  hurled  them  from  the  place.  They  r.;-e  guilty  of 


376  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

"  plagiarism  "  forsooth  !  And  in  what  ?  In  knowing  their  duty, 
without  knowing  where  they  learned  it !  0  shame  upon  this 
greediness,  that  would  turn  moral  truth  itself,  and  struggling 
aspiration,  into  a  property !  As  if  Christ  were  one  to  stand 
upon  the  copyright  of  revelation,  and,  unless  his  name  were 
in  the  title-page,  would  suffer  neither  thought  nor  prayer  to 
dedicate  itself  to  God !  Our  author,  as  public  prosecutor  in 
the  Supreme  Court,  demands  that  the  defendants  shall  empty 
themselves  out  of  every  earnest  sentiment,  and  surrender 
back  the  words  CONSCIENCE,  and  TRUTH,  and  RIGHTEOUS- 
NESS, and  SIN,  and  GOD,  "  as  stolen  from  the  BOOK  " !  What 
then  was  "  the  Book  "  given  for,  but  that  it  might  freely  fur- 
nish these  ?  —  and  how  better  can  it  fulfil  its  end,  than  by 
opening  for  them  a  sacred  welcome  wherever  the  things  are 
which  they  disclose  ?  Let  their  spirit  breathe  where  it  listeth; 
it  will  not  be  less  a  Holy  Spirit  that  we  know  not  "  whence  it 
cometh " :  nor  let  it  be  forgot  how  old  a  feature  of  evangelic 
blessing  it  is,  that  "  he  that  was  healed  wist  not  who  it  was." 
As  "  the  Book "  does  not,  by  its  presence,  create  the  facts 
which  it  reveals,  so  neither  does  its  absence  or  rejection  destroy 
them.  Conscience,  as  an  element  of  human  nature,  does  not 
come  or  go,  —  God,  as  reality  in  the  universe,  does  not  live 
or  perish,  —  according  as  the  Bible  is  kept  in  the  pocket  or 
laid  upon  the  shelf;  even  if  their  first  witness  were  in  Scrip- 
ture, they  themselves  are  in  the  world,  —  as  active,  as  near,  as 
certain,  in  the  transactions  of  to-day,  as  in  the  affairs  of  dis- 
tant history.  Scientific  truth,  once  well  ascertained,  can  take 
care  of  itself,  without  being  everywhere  attended  by  the  re- 
port of  its  first  discovery ;  it  is  in  the  safe  keeping  of  the 
objects  on  which  it  writes  a  new  meaning,  and  the  phenomena 
amid  which  it  introduces  a  fresh  symmetry.  And  moral 
truth,  when  once  embodied  and  revealed,  is  not  less  indepen- 
dent of  its  earliest  expression ;  it  finds  its  response  in  human 
consciousness,  its  reflection  from  human  life,  and  weaves  it- 
self up  into  the  very  fabric  of  many  souls,  whose  pattern 
bears  no  motto  of  its  origin.  Tims  "  revelation"  — just  in 
proportion  as  it  is  revelation,  and  tells  us  what  is  cognate  to 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  377 

ourselves,  and  bound  up  with  the  realities  around  us  —  passes 
of  necessity  into  "  natural  religion  "  ;  and  precisely  according 
to  the  measure  in  which  it  does  so,  will  it  acquire  strength 
and  permanence,  and  dispense  with  evidence  by  merging  into 
self-evidence.  Did  it  awaken  in  us  no  confirming  experience, 
did  it  nowhere  link  itself  with  the  visible  system  of  things,  — • 
then,  solving  nothing,  glorifying  nothing,  missed  by  all  the 
moving  indices  of  nature  and  Providence,  it  would  sit  apart, 
and  become  incredible.  That  could  hardly  be  a  truth  at  all, 
which,  after  roaming  the  world  and  searching  the  soul  for 
eighteen  centuries,  has  found  no  natural  ground  on  which  to 
rest,  and  must  wander  as  an  ipse  dixit  still.  And  if  natural 
ground  it  has  acquired,  that  is  surely  a  proper  basis  for 
its  present  support;  it  may  innocently  cease  to  be  held  on 
mere  authority ;  the  very  "  plagiarism "  so  vehemently  de- 
nounced is  rather  the  fulfilment  than  the  destruction  of  the 
faith,  for  it  is  only  that  men  no  longer  resort  to  an  oracle 
for  things  which  the  oracle  has  enabled  them  to  see  for  them- 
selves. 

Our  Christian  advocate,  however,  is  not  content  with  re- 
serving to  his  side  the  sole  power  of  discerning  the  duty  of 
reh'gious  veracity ;  he  further  claims  the  sole  right  to  practise 
it.  He  teaches  that  it  is  not  binding  on  all  men  at  all  times  ; 
and  that  its  obligation  is  in  any  case  conditional  on  the  "  initial 
postulate,  that  Christianity  is  from  heaven."  He  thinks,  ap- 
parently, that  the  duty  is  not  so  much  revealed  as  constituted 
by  the  Gospel,  so  as  to  have  no  existence  beyond  the  pale. 
We  can  collect  from  his  words  two  considerations,  under 
whose  influence  he  seems  to  pronounce  this  strange  judgment. 
He  evidently  assumes  that  the  duty  of  veracious  profession  is 
contingent  partly  on  the  object-matter  of  belief;  partly  on  the 
degree  of  evidence.  If  my  faith  is  directed  towards  a  Person, 
then,  he  implies,  there  is  treachery,  even  blasphemy,  in  deny- 
ing it ;  but  if  not,  my  disclaimer  gives  no  one  any  title  to 
complain,  and  I  cannot  be  expected  to  die  on  behalf  of  a 
proposition.  Polycarp  must  not  renounce  Christ,  his  Lord ; 
but  Plutarch  might  very  properly  recant,  without  at  all  alter- 
32* 


378  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

ing,  his  judgment  against  the  poets,  for  ascribing  passions  to 
the  gods.  Is  it  so,  indeed  ?  Then  there  is  no  harm  in  a  lie, 
unless  some  one  is  betrayed  or  insulted  by  it  besides  the  hear- 
ers whom  we  deceive,  —  and  we  may  report  as  falsely  as  we 
please  our  persuasion  about  things,  provided  we  are  true  to 
our  sentiments  about  persons  ?  With  full  recollection  of  the 
questionable  verdicts,  on  problems  of  veracity,  which  are  given 
by  Xenophon  and  Plato,  Aristotle  and  Cicero,  we  doubt  wheth- 
er any  Pagan  moralist  can  be  quoted  in  favor  of  a  doctrine  so 
unworthy  as  this.  The  author  seems  to  imagine  that  the 
obligation  to  speak  the  truth  is  a  mere  duty  of  personal  affec- 
tion ;  and  that  in  the  absence  of  this  element,  its  claims  alto- 
gether disappear.  Identifying  falsehood  with  detraction  and 
ingratitude,  he  concludes  that,  since  an  abstract  theory  is  in- 
sensible to  what  people  say  about  it,  and  can  have  no  services 
owing  to  it,  it  may  be  blamelessly  repudiated  by  those  who 
really  believe  it.  This  is  tantamount  to  an  expunging  of  ve- 
racity from  the  list  of  human  duties  altogether ;  for  it  gives 
importance  to  what  is  purely  accidental,  and  slights  what  is 
alone  essential  to  it.  The  conditions  of  a  lie,  in  all  its  full- 
blown wickedness,  are  quite  complete,  when  there  is  a  person 
to  speak  it,  a  person  to  hear  it,  and  a  social  state  to  be  the 
theatre  of  the  deception  ;  should  there  be  also  a  person  spoken 
of,  that  is  a  circumstance  in  no  way  requisite  to  constitute  the 
guilt,  but  a  supplementary  condition,  flinging  in  a  new  element 
of  pravity,  and  turning  falsehood  into  faithlessness.  The  in- 
troduction of  this  additional  person  into  the  case  may  doubt- 
less render  the  offence  much  more  flagrant,  especially  if  he 
be  one  who  has  acknowledged  claims  on  gratitude  and  rever- 
ence. Calumny  and  perfidy  are  justly  held  in  deeper  abhor- 
rence than  equivocation  unstained  with  malignity.  But  to  be 
unaffected  by  the  criminality  till  it  kindles  with  this  diabolical 
glare,  and  not  even  to  believe  in  it  unless  it  smells  sulphurous 
and  burns  red,  betrays  a  perception  too  much  accustomed  to 
melodramatic  contrasts  of  representation  to  appreciate  the 
more  delicate  tints  and  finer  moral  lights  of  the  real  and  open 
day.  And  so  far  from  the  glory  of  martyrdom  being  height- 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  379 

ened  by  the  presence  of  deep  personal  affection  as  its  inspira- 
tion, this  very  circumstance  renders  the  act  a  less  arduous 
sacrifice ;  just  as  to  fall  in  the  hot  blood  of  battle  may  need 
less  heroism  of  will,  than  to  die  under  the  knife  upon  the  sur- 
geon's table.  In  proportion  as  the  denial  of  Christ  in  the 
hour  of  trial  would  be  the  more  intolerable  blasphemy,  must 
the  temptation  to  it  be  less  overwhelming,  and  the  merit  of  a 
good  confession  less  amazing.  And  those  who,  in  matters 
touching  no  such  deep  affection,  can  yet  be  true,  —  those  who, 
in  simple  clearness  of  conscience,  can  dispense,  if  need  be, 
with  the  help  of  enthusiasm,  and  so  shut  their  lips  against  a 
lie,  that  not  the  searing  iron  can  open  them,  —  those  who  do 
not  want  a  grand  occasion,  but  just  as  certainly  use  the  small- 
est, to  fling  back  the  thing  that  is  not,  —  have  assuredly  a 
soul  of  higher  prowess  and  more  severely  proved  fidelity  to 
God  And  it  is  a  heartless  thing  to  turn  round  upon  these 
men,  and  taunt  them  with  having  no  one  at  whose  feet  to  lay 
their  offering,  and  no  popular  sympathy  to  redeem  their  up- 
rightness from  the  imputation  of  conceit. 

There  is,  however,  another  consideration  which  weighs  with 
our  author  in  granting  to  "  modern  unbelievers  "  a  dispensa- 
tion from  the  duty  of  religious  veracity.  They  have  only  a 
"  personal  persuasion  "  resting  on  precarious  grounds,  and  not 
the  certitude  attaching  to  "  the  conclusions  of  mathematical 
and  physical  science  "  ;  and  it  would  be  folly  to  suffer  on  be- 
half of  "  undemonstrable  religious  feeling  "  !  Are  we  then  to 
lay  it  down  as  a  canon  in  ethics,  that  intensity  of  assurance 
is  the  measure  of  our  obligation  to  speak  the  truth,  —  so  that 
we  are  to  state  our  certainties  correctly,  but  may  tell  lies 
about  our  doubts  ?  If  so,  scrupulous  fidelity  is  incumbent  on 
us  only  within  the  limits  of  deductive  science  and  of  immedi- 
ate personal  observation ;  and  in  the  great  sphere  of  human 
affairs,  in  matters  of  historical,  moral,  and  political  judgment, 
nay,  in  the  incipient  stage  of  all  knowledge,  we  may  say  and 
unsay,  may  play  fast  and  loose  with  our  convictions,  according 
as  the  favor  or  the  fear  of  men  hangs  over  us.  Newton  was 
bound  to  stand  by  his  "  Principia " ;  but  Locke  might  have 


380  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

renounced  his  treatise  on  Government  and  taken  his  oath  to 
the  divine  rights  of  kings  !  Were  he  indeed  to  refuse  so  easy 
a  compliance,  it  would  be  a  great  reflection  upon  his  modesty  ; 
for  if  a  man,  on  being  threatened  with  death,  will  not  belie 
his  own  persuasion  of  probable  truth,  he  is  chargeable  with 
"  overweening  confidence  in  his  own  reasoning  faculty  "  !  It 
is  happy  for  the  world  that  it  does  not  always  except  the 
morals  of  the  Church,  but  brings  an  unperverted  feeling  to 
correct  the  twisted  logic  of  belief.  "  Opinion,"  a  wise  man 
has  said,  "  is  but  knowledge  in  the  making  " ;  and  how  little 
knowledge  would  get  made,  if  opinion  were  emptied  of  its 
conscience,  and  looked  on  itself  as  an  egotism  rather  than  a 
trust !  If  there  is  one  fruit  of  intellectual  culture  which  more 
than  another  dignifies  and  ennobles  it,  it  is  the  scrupulous  rev- 
erence it  trains  for  the  smallest  reality,  its  watchfulness  for 
the  earliest  promise  of  truth,  its  tender  care  of  every  stamen 
in  the  blossoming  of  thought,  from  whose  flower-dust  the  seed 
of  a  richer  futurity  may  grow.  To  cut  against  this  fine  ve- 
racious sense  with  the  weapons  of  unappreciating  sarcasm, 
and  crush  its  objects  into  the  ground  as  weeds  with  the  heel 
of  orthodox  scorn,  is  a  feat  which  can  advance  the  step  of 
Christian  evidence  only  by  betraying  the  Christian  ethics. 
Our  author  has  entangled  himself  in  the  metaphor  indicated 
by  the  word  "  martyrdom "  ;  he  thinks  of  the  confessor  as 
bearing  witness  to  something,  —  which  is  indeed  quite  true  ; 
and  supposes  that  the  things  to  which  he  bears  witness  must 
be  the  facts  or  doctrines  held  by  him  ;  and  this  is  not  true  at 
all.  For  that  which  we  attest  in  the  hour  of  persecution  is 
simply  our  own  state  of  mind;  our  belief,  and  not  the  object 
believed.  We  are  required  to  utter  words,  or  to  perform 
acts,  that  shall  give  report  of  our  persuasion ;  this  persuasion 
is  a  fact  in  our  personal  psychology  about  which  there  is  no 
ambiguity ;  which,  as  a  presence  in  our  consciousness,  is 
wholly  unaffected  by  the  question  how  it  got  there,  and  by 
what  logical  tenure  it  holds  its  seat. '  Whether  we  have  de- 
monstrated it  into  the  mind  or  fetched  it  thither  in  a  dream, 
whether  we  had  it  yesterday  or  shall  continue  to  have  it  to- 


THE    RESTORATION    OP   BELIEF.  881 

morrow,  are  matters  in  no  way  altering  the  fact  that  it  is 
there ;  and  if  we  say  "  No  "  to  it,  while  conscious  of  a  "  Yes," 
the  sin  is  neither  greater  when  the  belief  concerns  the  prop- 
erties of  a  geometric  solid,  nor  less  when  it  touches  some  in- 
determinate problem  of  metaphysics.  The  logical  ground  of 
our  judgments  is  various  without  end,  —  perception,  testi- 
mony, reasoning,  in  every  possible  combination.  But  the 
persuasion,  once  attained,  is  a  simple  phenomenon,  whose 
affirmation,  or  denial,  being  always  positively  true,  cannot 
change  its  moral  complexion  with  every  shade  in  the  evidence 
now  left  behind.  It  is  plain  that,  in  our  author's  favorite  case 
of  martyrdom,  no  testimony  could  be  borne  by  the  Christian 
to  anything  but  his  own  conviction.  Polycarp  and  Cyprian 
could  only  answer  in  the  face  of  death,  that  they  were  Chris- 
tians ;  it  was  not  "  on  behalf  of "  any  outward  fact,  but  simply 
because  they  would  not  belie  their  inward  belief,  that  they  laid 
down  their  lives.  And  had  Plutarch  been  dragged  before 
some  anthropomorphist  inquisition,  and  been  called  on  pub- 
licly to  declare  his  belief  that  the  immortal  gods  were  well 
and  truly  painted  by  the  poets  as  having  passions  like  man- 
kind, the  lie  to  which  he  was  tempted  would  have  been  pre- 
cisely of  the  same  kind ;  and  had  it  passed  his  lips,  would 
have  made  him  despicable  as  an  apostate.  He  had  no  power, 
nor  had  the  Church  confessor,  over  the  truth  or  evidence  of 
his  opinion ;  neither  of  them  had  any  witness,  in  the  strict 
sense,  to  bear ;  but  both  might  voraciously  scorn  to  deny  a 
fact  unambiguously  present  to  their  self-knowledge.  If  the 
heathen's  firmness  is  an  example  of  "  overweening  confidence 
in  his  own  reasoning  faculty,"  by  what  favoring  difference 
does  the  Christian's  escape  the  same  imputation  ?  That  his 
faith  is  "  absolute,"  his  persuasion  "  irresistible,"  so  far  from 
furnishing  a  vindication,  only  avows  the  fact  that  his  "  confi- 
dence "  is  intense ;  whether  it  be  "  overweening "  too,  must 
depend  on  the  proportion  between  the  certitude  he  feels  and 
the  grounds  of  just  assurance  he  possesses.  But  at  all  events 
it  is  a  confidence  —  in  this  case  as  in  the  other  —  undeniably 
reposed  "  in  his  own  reasoning  faculty."  How  else  could 


382  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BKLIEF. 

any  belief —  except  a  groundless  belief —  reach  the  convert's 
mind  at  all  ?  It  is  vain  to  pretend  that  the  receivers  of  an 
historic  doctrine  plant  their  reliance  piously  on  God,  while 
its  rejecters  proudly  trust  themselves.  There  is  no  less  sub- 
jective action  of  the  mind  on  the  positive  side  than  on  the 
negative ;  and  on  the  soundness  of  that  action  does  the  worth 
of  the  result  in  either  instance  depend.  The  evidence  on 
both  sides  comes  into  the  same  court  of  criticism ;  and  plead- 
ing and  counter-pleading  must  ask  a  hearing  from  the  same 
judicial  intelligence.  If  our  author  refers  the  Gospels  to  the 
first  century,  and  his  opponents  to  the  second;  if  he  finds  a 
miracle  in  the  gift  of  tongues,  they  a  delusion ;  if  he  thinks 
that  the  reasoning  out  of  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New  is 
exegetically  and  logically  sound,  they  that  it  is  in  both  re- 
spects unsound ;  —  is  he  not  concerned  with  the  same  topics, 
conducting  the  same  processes,  liable  to  the  same  mistaken 
estimates,  as  they  ?  How  then  can  he  flatter  himself  that 
the  same  thing  is  believed  on  one  tenure,  and  disbelieved  on 
quite  another  ?  How  affect,  even  while  playing  the  advocate, 
to  be  raised  above  the  contingencies  of  the  "  reasoning  facul- 
ty," and  entitled  to  rebuke  its  pride  ?  How  renounce  it  for 
himself,  appeal  to  it  for  your  assent,  abuse  it  for  your  dissent, 
in  the  wayward  course  of  two  or  three  pages  ? 

Our  author  stands,  therefore,  in  spite  of  every  effort  to  es- 
cape it,  on  the  same  logical  ground  as  his  opponents  ;  and 
they,  notwithstanding  his  objection  to  their  companionship, 
are  on  the  same  footing  of  religious  obligation  with  himself. 
He  is  offended  to  find  such  a  one  as  Mr.  Newman  on  the 
same  sacred  pavement,  and  to  overhear  from  unbelieving  lips 
the  genuine  tones  of  prayer;  and,  thanking  God,  apprises 
men  that  he  "  is  not  as  this  publican."  He  prosecutes  for 
trespass  all  who,  after  rejecting  his  Christianity,  can  dare  to 
profess  allegiance  to  the  "  truth  of  God,"  and  "  speak  as  if 
they  were  conscience-bound  towards  God"  Are  they  then 
not  so  bound  ?  Has  no  one  a  conscience  except  the  approved 
historical  believer  ?  Is  it  not  in  others  also  a  Divine  voice, 
—  a  Holy  Spirit,  —  which  to  resist  and  stifle  were  the  true 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  383 

and  only  "  Infidelity  "  ?  Surely  the  faith  in  God,  and  the 
earnest  acceptance  of  the  laws  of  duty  as  the  expression  of 
his  authority,  are  not  forbidden  to  men  who  cannot  assume 
the  disciple's  style.  These  sentiments,  so  far  from  waiting 
on  revelation  for  their  possibility,  are  the  pre-requisite  con- 
ditions of  all  revelation,  the  state  of  mind  to  which  it  speaks, 
the  secret  power  by  which  it  finds  us  out ;  and  if  men  cannot 
be  "  conscience-bound  towards  God  "  before  and  without  Chris- 
tianity, never  can  they  become  so  after  it  and  with  it.  It 
does  not  take  us  up  as  atheists  and  brutes,  and  supply  us 
with  the  faculties  as  well  as  the  substance  of  faith ;  else  were 
there  no  medium  of  suasion  across  the  boundary  of  unbelief; 

—  but  it  appeals  to  us  as  knowing   much  and  aspiring  to 
more,  —  as  already  before  the  face,  only  shrinking  from  the 
clear  look  of  God,  —  as  feeling  the  divine  restraint  upon  us 
of  justice,  purity,  and  truth,  but  unable,  without  some  eman- 
cipating power,  to  turn  it  into  freedom  and  joy.     This  spirit 
of  profound  sympathy,  not  of  arrogant   insult,  towards   the 
highest  faiths  and  affections  of  our  nature,  we  recognize  in 
the  portraiture  and  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and  when  we 
find  one  who,  like  our  author,  instead  of  rejoicing  that  the 
sacred  embers  of  nature  are  yet  warm,  instead  of  kneeling 
over  them  to  fan  them  with  a  breath  of  reverence  into  a 
flame,  flings  them  with  scattering  scorn  on  the  damp  ground 
of  his  own  moral  scepticism  to  show  how  little  they  will  burn, 

—  we  see  reversed  in  the  "  Restorer  of  Belief"  the  divine 
temper  of  the  "  Author  of  Faith."     Such  a  teacher  will  vain- 
ly endeavor  to  recover  by  severity  of  warning  the  influence 
he  forfeits  by  want  of  sympathy.     He  cannot  frighten  men 
like  Parker,  Newman,  Greg,  by  appealing  to  fancied  "  mis- 
givings of  their  own  hearts  "  respecting  the  precariousness  of 
their  convictions,  and  uttering  dismal  prophecies  about  yawn- 
ing gulfs  ;  which,  however  alarming  as  a  shudder  of  rhetoric, 
can  disturb  no  quiet  trust  in  reality.     Let  us  hear  the  words, 
however :  — 

"  Educated  men  should  not  wait  to  be  reminded  that  those 
who,  after  abandoning  a  peremptory  historic  belief,  endeavor 


384  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

to  retain  Faith  and  Piety  for  their  comfort,  stand  upon  a  slope 
that  has  no  ledges:  Atheism  in  its  simplest  form  yawns  to 
receive  those  who  there  stand ;  and  they  know  themselves  to 
be  gravitating  towards  it. 

"  It  would  be  far  more  reasonable  for  a  man  to  die  as  a 
martyr  for  Atheism,  —  a  stage  beyond  which  no  further  pro- 
gress is  possible, —  than  to  do  so  at  any  point  short  of  that 
terminus,  knowing  as  he  does  that  every  day  is  bringing  him 
nearer  to  the  gulf.  The  stronger  the  mind  is,  and  the  more 
it  has  of  intellectual  massiveness,  the  more  rapid  will  be  its 
descent  upon  this  declivity.  Minds  of  little  density,  and  of 
much  airy  sentiment,  may  stay  long  where  they  are,  just  as 
gnats  and  flies  walk  to  and  fro  upon  the  honeyed  sides  of  a 
china  vase ;  they  do  not  go  down,  but  never  again  will  they 
fly."  — p.  94. 

This  is  one  of  the  conventional  minatory  arguments  which 
betray  the  absence  of  security  and  repose  from  the  heart  of 
the  received  theology  ;  whose  teachers  could  never  propound 
it,  except  from  a  position  of  conscious  danger.  They  must 
imagine  in  their  own  case  that,  if  they  were  to  find  the  Gos- 
pels no  longer  oracular,  they  would  plunge  at  once  into  end- 
less depths  of  negation  ;  and  that,  unless  they  can  refute  an 
interpretation  of  De  Wette's,  or  correct  a  date  of  Baur's,  there 
will  be  eternal  night  in  heaven.  They  feel  the  universe,  and 
life,  and  love,  and  sorrow,  and  the  history  of  times  and  races 
unbaptized,  to  be  all  atheistic  through  and  through,  —  profane 
to  the  core,  —  untraced  by  a  vestige,  untransfigured  by  a 
color,  of  divine  significance.  What  they  can  think  of  a  Being 
who  creates  all  reality  and  lives  in  it  on  these  blindfold  terms, 
we  will  not  attempt  to  decide ;  but  it  is  no  wonder  that,  hav- 
ing once  brought  themselves  to  believe  in  Him,  they  feel  how 
a  single  move  would  overset  them  into  disbelief.  This  thing, 
however,  is  true  of  their  own  state  of  mind  alone  ;  whose 
spaces,  dark  throughout  with  scepticism  but  for  one  distant 
lamp,  might  easily  be  left  without  a  ray.  It  is  consistent 
neither  with  reason  nor  with  experience  to  threaten  with 
this  rule  men  who  have  opened  their  souls  to  something  else 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  385 

than  documentary  authority.  It  is  notoriously  false  that 
the  career  of  historic  doubt  usually  terminates  in  the  loss  of 
all  faith  in  God ;  nor  do  we  suppose  that  our  author  would 
have  awarded  to  the  atheist,  for  actually  reaching  this  point, 
the  praise  of  "  intellectual  massiveness,"  had  he  not  wanted  a 
heavy  weight  to  slide  down  his  metaphorical  inclined  plane,* 
and  outstrip  the  slippery  believers  who  try  to  stop  half-way. 
The  accusation  against  Theism,  of  being  possible  to  the 
light-minded  and  superficial,  —  a  mere  sweet-bait  to  entrap 
the  silly  insects  of  the  intellectual  world,  —  is  confuted  by  the 
whole  history  of  philosophy  and  human  culture ;  all  whose 
grandest  names  have  connected  themselves  with  the  reco<mi- 
tion  of  a  religion  indigenous  or  accessible  to  the  faculties  of 
the  soul.  Let  our  author  collect  on  one  side  of  his  library 
all  the  giants  and  heroes  of  utter  disbelief,  and  on  the  other 
the  literature  of  natural  faith ;  nay,  let  him  ransack  for  fresh 
names  and  forgotten  suffrages  Lalande's  "  Dictionnaire  des 
Athees  " ;  and  if,  having  weighed  the  various  merits  of  Leu- 
cippus  and  Lucretius,  of  Baron  d'Holbach  and  La  Mettrie, 
of  Robert  Owen  and  Atkinson,  he  thinks  them  of  more  ster- 
ling mass  than  the  pure  gold  of  thought  and  life  accumulated 
by  Socrates,  Plato,  Antoninus,  —  by  Anselm  and  Abelard, 
Descartes  and  Arnaud,  —  by  the  authors  of  the  "  Theodicee," 
the  "  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding,"  and  the  "  Prin- 
ciples of  Human  Knowledge,"  —  by  Kant  and  Cousin, — by 
Butler  and  Paley  and  Arnold,  —  we  can  only  profess  a  dis- 
sent from  his  intellectual  taste,  not  less  than  from  his  moral 
judgment. 

The  few  pages  on  which  we  have  been  commenting  were 
the  first — though  they  are  near  the  end  of  the  treatise  — 

#  The  question  has  been  raised,  whether  the  author  of  "  The  Restoration 
of  Belief,"  who  presents  himself  to  us  through  the  Cambridge  publisher,  is 
really  a  University  man?  To  those  who  are  curious  about  such  critical 
problems,  we  would  suggest  this  consideration,  as  having  some  bearing  on 
the  case :  "  Could  a  person  who  had  studied  the  laws  of  accelerated  motion 
at  the  authoritative  school  of  English  science  have  so  forgotten  his  formulas 
as  to  make  his  heaviest  man  on  that  account  his  quickest  f  "  The  authorship, 
however,  is  not  less  evident  than  if  the  book  had  been  published  by  Messrs. 
Longmans,  or  by  Holdsworth  and  Ball. 

33 


386  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

that  fully  opened  our  eyes  to  the  author's  theological  animus. 
For  a  while,  his  large  professions,  and,  no  doubt,  sincere  pur- 
pose of  fairness,  —  his  apparent  breadth  of  view,  and  his  free 
hand  in  putting  down  his  subject  on  the  canvas,  —  secured  our 
admiring  confidence,  and  made  us  feel  that  here  at  length 
justice,  earnestness,  and  accomplishment  will  go  together. 
One  feature,  indeed,  we  noticed  as  giving  a  suspicious  appear- 
ance to  his  equity  of  temper ;  it  displays  itself  more  in  cen- 
soriousness  towards  his  friends,  than  in  large-hear tedness 
towards  his  antagonists.  He  readily  allows  faults  in  the  ad- 
vocates of  his  own  side,  but  is  never  carried  away  into  even 
a  momentary  appreciation  of  the  other.  This  particular  form 
of  impartiality,  which  consists  in  detracting  from  the  merits 
of  allies,  instead  of  delighting  in  those  of  opponents,  is  the 
ecclesiastic  counterfeit  of  candor,  —  the  half-shekel,  which  is 
alone  payable  in  the  temple-service,  but  which  nowhere,  save 
at  the  sacred  money-table,  is  deemed  equivalent  to  the  good 
Roman  coin  of  common  life.  Much  as  we  dislike  the  chink 
of  this  consecrated  metal,  we  hoped  that  it  would  only  ring 
for  a  passing  instant  on  the  ear.  But  alas  !  it  is  an  indication 
seldom  deceptive ;  and  we  feel  constrained  to  report  that 
there  are,  in  this  tract,  quotations  from  both  Mr.  Newman 
and  Mr.  Greg,  which,  if  we  were  in  the  court  of  veracity,  and 
not  of  theology,  we  would  say  are  unconscientiously  made. 
The  quotations  are  made  anonymously  as  well  as  unfaithfully, 
so  that  the  reader,  unless  haunted  by  the  checking  impres- 
sions of  memory,  cannot  correct  the  injustice  of  the  writer. 
The  "  Phases  of  Faith  "  describes,  it  will  be  remembered,  the 
gradual  course  of  Mr.  Newman's  defections  from  his  original 
orthodoxy.  His  first  movements  of  doubt  were  naturally 
timid  and  inconsiderable,  bringing  him  only  to  the  conclusion, 
that  the  genealogy  in  the  first  chapter  of  Matthew  was  copied 
wrong,  and  counted  wrong,  from  the  Old  Testament.  On 
this  step  followed  a  second,  and  a  third,  each  more  important 
than  the  preceding,  and  necessitating  a  next  more  momentous 
than  itself.  The  latter  stages  of  his  progress  included  an  in- 
quiry into  the  evidence  of  the  Resurrection,  the  miraculous 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  387 

gifts  ascribed  to  the  early  Church,  the  claims  to  credit  of  the 
Apostle  Paul,  and  other  topics,  undeniably  affecting  the  very 
essence  of  Christian  evidence.  Having  traced  the  successive 
advances  of  his  doubts,  Mr.  Newman,  in  a  recapitulary  "  Con- 
clusion, "  makes  a  solemn  appeal  to  his  readers,  to  say  at  what 
point  he  could  have  stopped,  and  to  lay  a  finger  distinctly  on 
the  place  at  which  the  guilt  of  his  scepticism  began.  One  by 
one  he  counts  out  the  steps  by  which  he  had  proceeded,  and 
asks,  "  Was  this  the  sinful  one  ?  "  The  whole  effect  of  the 
appeal  is  certainly  an  impression  that  the  series,  if  not  an  in- 
evitable sequence,  is  very  difficult  to  break ;  and  that,  small 
as  the  beginnings  were,  they  linked  themselves,  by  close  con- 
nection, with  very  momentous  results.  From  this  chapter 
our  author  cites  a  sentence  or  two,  but  m  such  a  way  as  im- 
mediately to  conjoin  the  small  initial  steps  of  doubt  with  the 
great  ultimate  conclusion,  and  to  make  it  appear  that  Mr. 
Newman  renounced  Christianity  because  he  could  not  make 
out  the  pedigree  of  Jesus  to  his  satisfaction.  The  genealogi- 
cal difficulty  is  the  only  one  which  he  quotes,  and  as  to  which 
Mr.  Newman  is  permitted  to  speak  for  himself.  Presenting 
this  as  a  specimen,  and  suppressing  all  the  rest,  he  says  that  he 
could  have  shown  "  this  writer  "  a  course  far  better  "  than,  on 
account  of  difficulties  such  as  these,  to  renounce  Christianity  "  ! 
His  citation  from  Mr.  Greg  is  introduced  as  follows :  — 

"  Let  another  witness  be  heard ;  and  in  hearing  him  one 
might  think  that  his  words  are  an  echo  that  has  come  softly 
travelling  down,  through  sixteen  centuries,  from  some  field  of 
blood,  or  some  forum,  or  some  amphitheatre,  where  Christian 
men  were  witnessing  a  good  confession  in  the  midst  of  their 
mortal  agonies  !  This  witness  is  one  who  assures  us  that '  he 
can  believe  no  longer,  he  can  worship  no  longer ;  he  has  dis- 
covered that  the  creed  of  his  early  days  is  baseless,  or  falla- 
cious.' Yet  he  too  takes  up  the  MARTYR  TRUTH,  that  we 
must  not  lie  to  God."  —  p.  91. 

Here,  then,  Mr.  Greg  (with  concealment  of  his  name)  is 
represented  as  one  who,  by  his  own  confession,  can  neither  be- 
lieve nor  worship  any  more.  Turning  to  the  preface  of  "  The 


388  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

Creed  of  Christendom,"  we  find  the  following  original  to  this 
quotation :  — 

"  The  pursuit  of  truth  is  easy  to  a  man  who  has  no  human 
sympathies,  whose  vision  is  impaired  by  no  fond  partialities, 
whose  heart  is  torn  by  no  divided  allegiance.  To  him  the  re- 
nunciation of  error  presents  few  difficulties ;  for  the  moment 
it  is  recognized  as  error,  its  charm  ceases.  But  the  case  is 
very  different  with  the  Searcher  whose  affections  are  strong, 
whose  associations  are  quick,  whose  hold  upon  the  Past  is 
clinging  and  tenacious.  He  may  love  Truth  with  an  earnest 
and  paramount  devotion ;  but  he  loves  much  else  also.  He 
loves  errors,  which  were  once  the  cherished  convictions  of  his 
soul.  He  loves  dogmas  which  were  once  full  of  strength  and 
beauty  to  his  thoughts,  though  now  perceived  to  be  baseless  or 
fallacious.  He  loves  the  Church  where  he  worshipped  in  his 
happy  childhood;  where  his  friends  and  his  family  worship 
still ;  where  his  gray-haired  parents  await  the  resurrection  of 
the  Just ;  but  where  he  can  worship  and  await  no  more.  He 
loves  the  simple  old  creed,  which  was  the  creed  of  his  earlier 
and  brighter  days  ;  which  is  the  creed  of  his  wife  and  children 
still ;  but  which  inquiry  has  compelled  him  to  abandon.  The 
past  and  the  familiar  have  chains  and  talismans  which  hold 
him  back  in  his  career,  till  every  fresh  step  forward  becomes 
an  effort  and  an  agony ;  every  fresh  error  discovered  is  a 
fresh  bond  snapped  asunder ;  every  new  glimpse  of  light  is 
like  a  fresh  flood  of  pain  poured  in  upon  the  soul.  To  such 
a  man  the  pursuit  of  Truth  is  a  daily  martyrdom,  —  how  hard 
and  bitter  let  the  martyr  tell.  Shame  to  those  who  make  it 
doubly  so ;  honor  to  those  who  encounter  it  saddened,  weep- 
ing, trembling,  but  unflinching  still."  —  p.  xvi. 

Our  author  would  snatch  from  Mr.  Greg  the  right  to  say, 
we  must  not  lie  to  God.  Which  has  the  better  right  to  say, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  lie  to  men  "  ? 

The  more  ingenuously  the  modern  Orthodoxy  lays  bare  its 
essence,  the  more  evident  is  it  that  a  profound  scepticism  not 
only  mingles  with  it,  but  constitutes  its  very  inspiration.  The 
dread  of  losing  God,  the  impression  that  there  is  but  one  pa- 


THE    RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  389 

tent  way,  not  of  duty,  but  of  thought,  of  meeting  him,  haunt 
the  minds  of  men,  driving  some  to  Anglicanism  to  compensate 
defect  of  faith  by  excess  of  sacrament,  some  to  Rome  in 
quest  of  the  Lord's  body,  and  prompting  others  to  conserva- 
tive efforts  of  Bibliolatry,  conducted  with  ever-decreasing 
reason  and  declining  hope.  We  have  seen,  however,  no  such 
exemplification  of  this  radical  distrust  as  in  the  treatise  before 
us.  Already  has  the  writer  declared  that  the  moral  side  of 
the  universe  sends  in,  with  regard  to  religion,  an  empty  re- 
port. And  now  he  hastens  to  tell  us  that,  on  the  physical  side, 
the  watchmen  from  every  observatory  of  nature  cry  out,  "  No 
God."  He  represents  the  natural  sciences  as  a  huge  Titanic, 
resistless  mass  of  knowledge,  perfectly  demonstrable,  and 
completely  irreligious;  descending,  like  a  glacier,  from  the 
upper  valleys  of  frozen  thought ;  sure  to  scrape  away  the 
wild  pine  woods  and  the  green  fields  of  natural  religion,  yet 
considerate  enough,  for  some  reason  unexplained,  to  spare  the 
foundations  of  the  village  church.  Designating  every  faith 
except  his  own  by  such  phrases  as  "  theosophic  fancies,"  and 
"  pietistic  notions,"  he  assures  us  that  they  will  all  be  put 
"  right  out  of  existence  "  by  "  our  modern  physical  sciences  "  ; 
and  he  borrows  from  the  "  Positive  Philosophy  "  (apparently 
by  unconscious  sympathy)  the  following  maxim  to  justify  his 
prediction :  — 

"  In  any  case,  when  that  which  on  any  ground  of  proof  takes 
full  hold  of  the  understanding,  (such,  for  example,  are  the  most 
certain  of  the  conclusions  of  Geology,)  stands  contiguous  to 
that  which,  in  a  logical  sense,  is  of  inferior  quality,  and  is  in- 
determinate, and  fluctuating,  and  liable  to  retrogression,  —  in 
any  such  case  there  is  always  going  on  a  silent  encroachment 
of  the  more  solid  mass  upon  the  ground  of  that  which  is  less 
solid.  What  is  SURE  will  be  pressing  upon  what  is  uncertain, 
whether  or  not  the  two  are  designedly  brought  into  collision 
or  comparison.  What  is  well  defined  weighs  upon,  and 
against,  what  is  ill  defined.  Nothing  stops  the  continuous  in- 
voluntary operation  of  SCIENCE  in  dislodging  OPINION  from 
the  minds  of  those  who  are  conversant  with  both. 
33* 


390  THE    liESTOKATION    OF   BELIEF. 

"  A  very  small  matter  that  is  indeed  determinate,  will  be 
able  to  keep  a  place  for  itself  against  this  incessantly  en- 
croaching movement ;  but  nothing  else  can  do  so.  As  to  any 
of  those  theosophic  fancies  which  we  may  wish  to  cling  to, 
after  we  have  thrown  away  the  Bible,  we  might  as  well  sup- 
pose that  they  will  resist  the  impact  of  the  mathematical  and 
physical  sciences,  as  imagine  that  the  lichens  of  an  Alpine 
gorge  will  stay  the  slow  descent  of  a  glacier."  —  p.  97. 

Here  it  is  alleged  that  Science  and  Opinion  cannot  coexist, 
—  that  the  demonstrable  will  banish  the  probable.  And  be  it 
observed,  this  is  to  take  place,  not  simply  where  contradiction 
arises  between  the  two  orders  of  belief,  but  in  all  cases,  from 
the  mere  distaste  which  quantitative  studies  produce  towards 
everything  which  evades  their  rules.  In  this  allegation  there 
is,  we  believe,  with  much  exaggeration,  a  certain  small  amount 
of  truth,  —  a  truth,  however,  which,  so  far  from  supporting 
our  author's  plea  against  natural  religion,  offers  it  a  conclusive 
refutation.  It  may  be  admitted  that  the  exact  and  mixed  sci- 
ences do  disincline  their  votary  to  put  trust  in  the  processes 
by  which  judgments  of  probability  are  formed,  and  alienate 
him  from  thinkers  who  read  off  the  meaning  of  the  universe 
by  another  key  than  his.  Accustomed  to  deal  with  Number 
and  Space,  with  Motion  and  Force  alone,  —  to  reason  upon 
them  by  a  Calculus  which  is  helpless  beyond  their  range,  —  to 
exercise  Faculties  involving  nothing  beyond  the  interpretation 
of  mensurative  signs  and  the  conception  of  relative  magni- 
tudes, —  he  owes  it  to  something  else  than  his  peculiar  disci- 
pline, if  he  has  either  the  instruments  or  the  aptitudes  for 
moral  and  philosophical  reflection.  He  carries  into  the  world, 
as  his  sole  means  of  representing  and  solving  its  phenomena, 
the  notion  of  physical  necessity  and  linear  sequence,  secretly 
defining  the  universe  to  himself  as  Leibnitz  defined  an  organ- 
ized being,  —  "a  machine,  whose  smallest  parts  are  also  ma- 
chines," —  and  naturally  grows  impatient  when  he  finds  him- 
self in  fields  of  thought  over  which  this  narrow  imagination 
opens  no  track.  With  respect,  therefore,  to  a  certain  class  of 
minds,  rendered  perhaps  increasingly  numerous  by  the  long 


THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF.  391 

neglect  of  the  moral  sciences  in  England,  it  may  be  quite  true, 
that  a  spirit  of  utter  disbelief  towards  everything  beyond  the 
range  of  necessary  matter  may  more  and  more  prevail.  Let 
us  further  grant  to  our  author,  for  the  moment,  three  things 
assumed  by  him,  all  of  them,  however,  false :  —  1.  That  this 
tendency  of  the  "  demonstrable  sciences  "  is  their  only  one 
having  a  bearing  on  "  theosophic  systems."  2.  That  it  is  so 
new,  at  least  in  degree,  as  to  give  "  opinion  "  a  worse  chance 
for  the  future  than  it  has  had  in  the  past.  3.  That  it  is  a  good 
tendency,  favorable  to  human  knowledge  and  character.  Still 
we  must  ask,  How  is  the  oracular  authority  of  the  Bible  to 
escape  the  fate  predicted  for  all  probabilities  ?  Our  author 
assures  us  that  it  will  escape  ;  but  he  gives  no  faintest  hint  of 
a  reason  for  so  singular  an  exception  to  his  own  canon.  It 
cannot  be  contended  that  the  evidences  of  Christianity  and 
Judaism  belong  to  any  of  the  "  demonstrable  "  or  "  physical " 
sciences.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  they  lie  wholly  witliin  the 
limits  of  contingent  knowledge,  and  terminate  only  in  "  prob- 
abilities " ;  that  the  authorship,  for  instance,  of  the  fourth  Gos- 
pel, the  credibility  of  the  introductory  chapters  of  Matthew, 
the  correctness  of  the  prophecies  about  the  second  advent,  are 
matters  which,  "  standing  contiguous  "  to  the  laws  of  refracted 
and  reflected  light,  occupy  the  position  of  the  less  sure  in  rela- 
tion to  the  more  sure ;  that  the  relative  chronology  of  the 
Scripture  books  is  more  indeterminate  than  that  of  the  geo- 
logic strata,  and  their  actual  dates  more  uncertain  than  those 
of  the  eclipses  fatal  to  Nicias  and  to  Perseus.  What,  then,  is 
to  exempt  these  judgments  of  verisimilitude  from  being  pushed 
"  right  out  of  existence  "  by  the  "  silent  encroachment  of  the 
more  solid  mass  "  of  knowledge  beside  it?  Nothing  can  be 
plainer  than  that  all  testimonial  knowledge  whatsoever,  all 
history,  criticism,  and  art,  the  whole  system  of  moral  and 
political  sciences,  must  fall  under  our  author's  fatal  sentence ; 
and  how  the  propositions  which  sustain  the  infallible  authority 
of  the  canonical  books  are  to  hold  their  ground  against  the 
huge  glacier  on  which  Herschel,  Airy  and  De  Morgan,  Comte 
and  Leverrier,  triumphantly  ride,  it  is  not  easy  to  conceive. 


392  THE    RESTORATION    OF    BELIEF. 

Amid  the  universal  crash  of  probabilities,  may  not  the  Mosaic 
tables  of  stone,  broken  once,  be  pulverized  at  last  ?  With  the 
abrasion  of  all  the  alluvial  soil  in  which  the  growths  of  won- 
der strike  their  roots,  will  the  garden  of  Eden,  will  the 
blighted  fig-tree,  remain  to  mark  a  verdant  and  a  barren  spot 
in  history  ?  Will  these  riding  philosophers  from  their  cold 
observatory  find  Paul's  "  third  heaven  "  ?  May  not  their  icy 
mountain  slip  into  "  the  abyss  "  whence  all  the  demons  came, 
and  fill  it  up  ?  These  questions,  indeed,  are  answered  for  us 
in  experience.  It  is  notorious  that,  whenever  an  unbounded 
devotion  to  science  has  produced  a  prevalent  tendency  to  dis- 
belief, Revelation,  so  far  from  being  spared,  has  been  usually 
the  first  object  of  attack ;  and,  both  at  the  origin  of  modern 
science  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  during  its  accelerated 
advance  towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth,  the  widening 
conception  of  determinate  Law  was  found  to  threaten  nothing 
so  decisively  as  the  faith  in  supernatural  dispensations.  The 
greater  scepticism  includes  the  less ;  and  the  habit  of  mind 
which  lets  slip  all  beliefs  not  legitimated  by  the  canons  of  nat- 
ural science,  cannot  possibly  retain  Christianity. 

But  our  author  has  only  half  described  the  mental  effect  of 
studies  purely  scientific.  They  do  not,  in  the  nature  of  things 
they  cannot,  simply  push  out  of  the  mind  all  contingent  judg- 
ments. Human  life  and  action  are  one  continuous  texture  of 
such  judgments,  with  some  interweaving,  no  doubt,  of  math- 
ematic  forms,  which  could  not  be  picked  out  without  spoiling 
the  symmetry  of  its  pattern ;  but  were  you  to  withdraw  the 
threads  of  probable  opinion,  still  more,  to  cut  the  warp  of  prim- 
itive assumptions  that  stretches  through  it,  the  web  would  sim- 
ply fall  to  pieces.  No  youth  can  decide  on  a  profession,  no 
man  appoint  an  agent  in  his  business,  no  physician  prescribe 
for  a  patient,  no  judge  pronounce  a  sentence,  no  statesman  an- 
swer a  despatch,  without  a  constant  resort  to  "  surmises,"  a 
reliance  on  slender  indications,  often  even  a  deliberate  adop- 
tion of  very  doubtful  hypotheses.  All  men  are  driven  from 
hour  to  hour  into  positions  demanding  combinations  of  thought 
which  can  be  borrowed  from  no  natural  science ;  where  not 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  393 

the  laws  of  matter  and  motion,  not  the  equilibrium  of  forces, 
not  the  properties  of  things,  are  chiefly  concerned,  but  the 
feelings  and  faculties  of  persons,  the  action  and  reaction  of 
human  affairs.  Mathematicians  and  natural  philosophers,  be- 
ing in  no  way  exempt  from  these  conditions,  are  obliged  to 
have  just  as  many  "  opinions  "  and  "  guesses  "  as  other  men  ; 
they  cannot,  if  they  are  to  keep  their  footing  on  this  world  at 
all,  have  a  smaller  stock  than  their  neighbors  of  this  "  logically 
inferior"  order  of  persuasions.  They  are  unable  to  abdicate 
the  necessity  of  having  these  persuasions  ;  and  their  only  pe- 
culiarity is,  that  they  sometimes  import  into  contingent  affairs 
the  methods  with  which  habit  has  rendered  them  familiar  in 
another  sphere,  and  so  find  the  conditions  of  belief  unsatisfied ; 
and  at  others,  from  consciousness  that  their  own  clew  will  not 
serve,  yet  inaptitude  for  seizing  a  better,  surrender  themselves 
to  the  fortuitous  guidance  of  ill-balanced  faculties  and  exter- 
nal solicitations.  Hence  their  judgments  are  frequently  fan- 
tastic, frequently  sceptical,  —  not  less  liable  to  be  too  easy  from 
one  cause  than  to  be  too  reluctant  from  another ;  and  were  a 
history  to  be  written  of  the  most  remarkable  extravagances, 
positive  as  well  as  negative,  by  which  religion  and  philosophy 
have  sprung  aside  from  the  centre  of  common  sense  and  feel- 
ing, it  would  contain  more  names  of  great  repute  in  the  exact 
sciences  than  from  any  other  intellectual  class  whatever.  From 
Pythagoras  to  Swedenborg,  the  eccentricities  of  mathemetical 
and  physical  imagination  have  been  the  chief  disturbers  of  a 
natural  and  healthy  faith.  Harmonic  theories  of  the  universe, 
Ideal  Numbers,  Geometric  Ethics,  Rosicrucian  fraternities, 
Vortices  and  Monads,  Apocalyptic  studies,  New  Jerusalems, 
and  Electrobiological  Metaphysics,  have  all  borne  testimony  to 
the  aberrant  fancy  of  eminent  proficients  in  the  sciences.  It 
is,  therefore,  far  from  being  universally  true,  that  disputable 
theosophies  and  conjectural  systems  of  the  universe  are  dis- 
tasteful to  minds  schooled  in  the  "  demonstrable  sciences."  If 
to  men  of  this  order  we  owe  the  successive  dislodgement  of  one 
such  hypothesis  after  another,  to  them  also  do  we  owe  their 
continual  reproduction.  Whether  the  unsoundness  of  judg- 


394  THE  RESTORATION  OF  BELIEF. 

raent  which  is  contracted  in  the  absence  of  historical,  moral, 
and  metaphysical  studies  shall  show  itself  in  an  excessive 
slowness  or  an  excessive  facility  of  belief,  will  depend  on  ac- 
cidents of  personal  character  and  social  position.  But  of  this 
we  may  be  sure ;  —  if  the  sceptical  temper  be  the  direction 
taken,  the  Bible  will  not  be  spared ;  if  the  credulous,  "  the- 
osophic  fancies  "  will  be  copiously  saved. 

Can  there,  after  all,  be  a  more  paradoxical  spectacle  than 
that  of  a  religious  writer  allying  himself  with  the  sceptical 
propensities  of  science,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  gainsayers  of 
the  Bible  ?  It  is  the  counterpart  in  logic  of  the  Italian  game 
in  politics,  —  the  Pope  appealing  to  Parisian  swords  to  drive 
out  the  Republic,  and  save  the  head  of  Christendom.  Is  it 
possible  that  our  auther  can  approve  the  agency  which  he  thus 
invokes  ?  that  he  can  really  wish  to  see  it  in  the  intellectual 
ascendant,  and  garrisoning  every  sacred  fortress  of  the  world  ? 
Does  he  remember  what  are  the  fundamental  canons  of  its 
logic,  —  that  we  know  nothing  but  Phenomena,  —  that  Causa- 
tion is  nothing  but  phenomenal  priority,  —  or  else,  that  Force 
is  the  prior  datum  of  which  Thought  is  a  particular  and  pos- 
terior development  ?  And  what,  on  the  other  hand,  are  the 
"  theosophic  fancies  "  against  which  he  would  plant  this  bar- 
baric artillery  of  Fate  ?  They  are  such  as  these,  —  that  our 
faculties  give  us  trustworthy  reports,  not  of  phenomena  only, 
but  of  their  abiding  ground,  —  Soul  within,  God  without; — 
that  the  moral  Law  of  Obligation  in  the  one  is  the  expression 
of  Holy  Will  in  the  other;  —  that  faithfulness  in  the  Human 
mind  to  its  highest  aspirations,  brings  it  into  communion  with 
the  Divine ;  —  that  as  the  Soul  is  the  free  Image,  so  is  Nature 
the  determinate  Handiwork  of  God.  If  these  doctrines, 
spurned  by  our  author  with  so  rude  a  flippancy,  were  to  sur- 
render to  the  hostility  on  which  he  relies,  is  he  unaware  of  the 
character  the  conflict  would  assume,  and  of  the  dynasty  of 
thought  which  would  reign  undisputed  at  the  close  ?  Fight- 
ing by  the  side  of  such  allies  against  "  theosophic  fancies,"  he 
may  skirmish  with  the  "  fancies,"  but  they  will  bear  right  down 
upon  the  "  Theism  "  in  the  centre  ;  and  when  the  day  is  over, 


THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF.  395 

the  standard  they  will  plant  upon  the  conquered  towers  will 
be,  not  the  sacred  dove  he  took  into  the  field,  and  lost  to  the 
defeated  foe,  but  their  own  blind  black  eagle  of  necessity. 
How  strange  is  the  perversion  of  instinctive  sympathies,  when 
a  theologian  disparages  the  sciences  of  reflection  and  self- 
knowledge,  and  takes  his  stand  on  the  evidence  of  sense  and 
measurement  alone  !  —  when  he  proposes  to  sweep  out  beliefs 
that  trouble  him  with  their  neighborhood,  by  a  general  crusade 
against  all  probabilities,  —  and  when,  with  this  design,  he  vio- 
lates the  just  balance  of  power  among  the  kingdoms  of  human 
knowledge,  and  flatters,  as  if  it  were  a  virtue,  the  pretensions 
of  a  mental  habit,  which,  out  of  its  own  province,  is  one  of 
the  most  incapacitating,  yet  destructive,  of  intellectual  vices! 
There  is,  however,  a  certain  secret  affinity  of  feeling  between 
a  Religion  which  exaggerates  the  functions  and  overstrains 
the  validity  of  an  external  authority,  and  a  Science  which 
deals  only  with  objective  facts,  perceived  or  imagined.  The 
point  of  sympathy  is  found  in  a  common  distrust  of  every- 
thing internal,  even  of  the  very  faculties  (as  soon  as  they  are 
contemplated  as  such)  by  which  the  external  is  apprehended 
and  received.  And  between  this  sort  of  faith  and  the  math- 
ematics there  is  another  analogy,  which  may  explain  so  curi- 
ous a  mutual  understanding.  Both  rest  upon  hypotheses, 
which  it  is  beyond  their  province  to  look  into,  but  after  the  as- 
sumption of  which,  all  room  for  opinion  is  shut  out  by  a  rigid 
necessity.  Once  get  your  infallible  book,  and  (supposing  the 
meaning  unambiguous)  it  settles  every  matter  on  which  it  pro- 
nounces ;  and  once  allow  the  first  principles  and  definitions  in 
geometry  to  express  truths  and  realities,  and  you  can  deny 
nothing  afterwards.  It  is  the  business  of  philosophy  to  go  be- 
low the  mathematics,  and  determine  whether  they  are  more 
than  hypothetical  science,  —  whether  their  assumptions  are  a 
mere  play  of  subjective  necessity,  or  are  objectively  trust- 
worthy. It  is  the  business  of  both  reflective  philosophy  and 
historical  criticism  to  go  below  "the  BOOK,"  and  determine 
whether  it  has  more  than  hypothetical  infallibility, —  whether 
the  conditions,  inner  and  outer,  of  such  a  claim,  are  or  are  not 


396  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

satisfied.  If  even  the  Mathematics,  which  have  little  to  fear 
from  the  investigation  of  their  basis,  have  not  been  on  the 
best  terms  with  Metaphysics,  it  is  hardly  surprising  that  a 
Religion  of  mere  external  authority  should  feel  antipathy  for 
the  studies  which  pry  into  its  foundations,  with  the  inevitable 
effect  of  showing  that  what  is  certainty  above  ground  is  opinion 
below.  Nor  is  it  wonderful  that  both  sets  of  beliefs  are  fond 
of  forgetting  their  hypothetical  origin,  contemplating  only 
their  acquired  semblance  of  security,  and  speaking  as  if  they 
disowned  contingency  altogether,  and  despised  the  detractors 
who  could  suspect  such  a  taint  in  their  blood.  Hence  the  fel- 
low-feeling which  occasionally  unites  a  rigid  theology,  and  an 
exclusive  physical  and  mathematical  science.  It  is  founded 
on  their  joint  antipathy  to  the  sources  of  moral  knowledge,  — 
their  common  blindness  to  one  half  of  human  culture.  Like 
all  alliances  resting  on  antipathy  alone,  it  is  neither  honorable 
nor  durable.  It  is  the  function  of  Religion  to  occupy  a  tran- 
quil seat  above  the  contests  of  partial  pursuits  and  narrow  in- 
terests;  as,  in  the  world  of  action,  to  hold  the  balance  of 
Right,  so,  in  the  world  of  intellect,  to  preserve  the  equities  and 
the  equilibrium  of  Truth ;  and  her  trust  is  betrayed  by  any 
one  who  flings  himself,  as  her  representative,  into  the  civil 
wars  of  the  sciences,  and  in  her  name  signs  away  whole  prov- 
inces of  thought,  and  abandons  them  to  outrage  and  confisca- 
tion as  conquered  lands.  Human  faith  has  nothing  to  fear 
from  the  unity  and  perfection  of  all  the  sciences ;  but  much 
from  the  blind  ambition  of  each  one.  It  is  from  this  persua- 
sion alone,  and  not  from  any  defective  appreciation  of  physical 
studies,  that  we  have  spoken  freely  of  their  tendency,  when 
the  mind  is  entirely  enclosed  within  them.  The  undoubted 
source  of  inestimable  blessings  to  mankind,  and  an  indispen- 
sable element  of  culture  to  the  individual,  they  are  mischiev- 
ous only  when  they  grow  dizzy  with  success,  and  propound 
schemes  of  universal  empire.  The  moment  they  undertake 
either  to  create  or  destroy  a  religion,  the  sign  is  unmistakable 
that  this  intoxicated  ambition  has  begun  to  work. 

The  relation  of  Religion  to  History  our  author  appears  to 


THE    RESTORATION    OP    BELIEF.  397 

us  to  conceive  much  more  correctly  than  its  relation  to  Science. 
On  this  great  topic,  however,  our  limits  forbid  us  to  enter. 
One  remark  only  we  will  make.  The  author  misconceives 
the  objection  of  Theodore  Parker  and  others  to  the  ordinary 
doctrine  of  historical  revelation.  They  do  not,  as  he  affirms, 
"disjoin  religion  from  history,"  or  in  the  least  decline  the 
"  travelling  back  to  ages  past "  on  its  account.  It  is  not  the 
presence  of  God  in  antiquity,  but  his  presence  only  there, — 
not  his  inspiration  in  Palestine,  but  his  withdrawal  from  every 
spot  besides,  —  not  even  his  supreme  and  unique  expression 
in  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  but  his  absence  from  every  other  human 
medium,  —  against  which  these  writers  protest.  They  feel 
that  the  usual  Christian  advocate  has  adopted  a  narrow  and 
even  irreligious  ground ;  that  he  has  not  found  a  satisfactory 
place  in  the  Divine  scheme  of  human  affairs  for  the  great 
Pagan  world  ;  that  he  has  presumptuously  branded  all  history 
but  one  as  "  profane  " ;  that  he  has  not  only  read  it  without 
sympathy  and  reverence,  but  has  used  it  chiefly  as  a  foil  to 
show  off  the  beauty  of  evangelic  truth  and  holiness,  and  so 
has  dwelt  only  on  the  inadequacy  of  its  philosophy,  the  deform- 
ities of  its  morals,  the  degenerate  features  of  its  social  life ; 
that  he  has  forgotten  the  Divine  infinitude  when  he  assumes 
that  Christ's  plenitude  of  the  Spirit  implies  the  emptiness  of 
Socrates.  In  their  view,  he  has  rashly  undertaken  to  prove, 
not  one  positive  fact,  —  a  revelation  of  divine  truth  in  Galilee,  — 
but  an  infinite  negative,  —  no  inspiration  anywhere  else.  To 
this  negation,  and  to  this  alone,  is  their  remonstrance  addressed. 
They  do  not  deny  a  theophany  in  the  gift  of  Christianity ;  but 
they  deny  two  very  different  things,  viz. :  —  1.  That  this  is  the 
only  theophany ;  and,  2.  That  this  is  theophany  alone  ;  —  that 
is,  they  look  for  some  divine  elements  elsewhere ;  and  they  look 
for  some  human  here.  It  is  not  therefore  a  smaller,  but  a 
larger,  religious  obligation  to  history,  which  they  are  anxious 
to  establish ;  and  they  remain  in  company  with  the  Christian 
advocate,  so  long  as  his  devout  and  gentle  mood  continues ; 
and  only  quit  him  when  he  enters  on  his  sceptical  antipathies. 
This,  in  spite  of  every  resistance  from  the  rigor  of  the  older 
34 


398  THE   RESTORATION    OF   BELIEF. 

theology,  is  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the  modern  histor- 
ical criticism.  Its  large  and  genial  apprehension  opens  for  us 
new  admirations,  new  sympathies,  clearer  insight  into  human 
realities,  throughout  the  nations  and  ages  of  the  past.  It 
melts  away  from  our  ancient  moral  geography  the  ideal  con- 
trasts of  coloring  which  made  the  world  the  scene  of  an  un- 
natural dualism,  and  reinstates  the  great  families  of  man  in 
unity.  It  is  doing  for  our  conception  of  the  moral  world  what 
science  has  already  done  for  our  conception  of  the  natural :  it 
is  expanding  our  notion  of  Divine  agency  within  it.  As,  in 
reference  to  physical  nature,  we  have  learned  to  think  that 
God  did  not  enact  creation  but  once,  and  cease ;  so  are  we  be- 
ginning to  perceive,  in  relation  to  the  human  mind  and  life,  that 
he  did  not  enter  history  only  once,  and  quite  exceptionally. 
Whoever  opens  his  heart  to  this  great  thought  will  find  in  it, 
not  the  uneasiness  of  doubt,  but  the  repose  of  faith.  He  will 
no  longer  fancy  that,  in  order  to  keep  Christianity  as  the 
divinest  of  all,  he  must  fear  to  feel  aught  else  divine.  He 
will  worship  still  at  the  same  altar,  and  sing  his  hymn  to  the 
same  strain;  only  with  a  richer  chorus  of  consentient  voices, 
and  in  a  wider  communion  of  faithful  souls. 


ONE  GOSPEL  IN  MANY  DIALECTS. 


".  And  they  were  all  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  began  to  speak  in  other 
tongues,  according  as  the  Spirit  gave  them  utterance.  And  there  were  so- 
journing at  Jerusalem  Jews,  devout  men,  out  of  every  nation  under  heav- 
en. Now  when  this  was  noised  abroad,  the  multitude  came  together;  and 
they  were  confounded  because  every  one  heard  them  speaking  in  his  own 
e."  —  Acts  ii.  4-6. 


IN  that  marvellous  scene,  the  anniversary  of  which  coin- 
cides on  this  Whitsunday  with  our  Centenary,  a  question  long 
pending  between  the  Rabbis  and  the  Holy  Spirit  came  to  an 
open  issue.  They  were  Aramaaan  scholars,  and  had  their 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  set  forth  in  the  best  Hebrew,  which,  true 
enough,  was  of  no  great  human  currency,  and  not  strictly  a 
living  tongue  at  all ;  but  then  had  been  distinguished  by 
Divine  use  from  the  earliest  time.  Was  it  not  in  this  that  the 
Call  had  come  to  Abram  ?  and  the  promises  been  repeated  to 
the  Patriarchs  ?  and  the  music  been  flung  from  the  harp  of 
David?  and  the  burdens  of  inspiration  been  treasured  on  the 
Prophet's  scroll?  Who  could  quote  a  word  that  God  had 
ever  spoken  in  any  other  language  ?  It  was  the  one  sacred 
idiom,  from  which  all  others  are  divergent  corruptions,  and 
to  which,  when  the  world's  confusion  is  over,  they  must  again 
return.  However  few  in  these  decadent  ages  might  under- 
stand it  still,  it  was  intrinsically  fitted  to  be  universal.  And 
who  could  call  that  speech  provincial,  at  whose  sound  the 
heavens  and  earth  arose?  or  esteem  it  temporary,  when  it 


400  ONE    GOSPEL    IN    MANY   DIALECTS. 

persevered  through  the  dispersion  at  Babel,  and  was  present 
on  the  world  before  the  Flood  ?  So  there  must  be  nothing 
else  allowed  in  the  liturgies  of  the  Synagogue,  in  the  reading 
of  Scripture,  or  in  any  intercourse  between  man  and  God. 
Only  when  men  began  to  converse  with  one  another,  to  com- 
pare their  human  thoughts,  and  descend  from  prophetic  to  di- 
dactic gifts,  might  they  resort  to  the  media  of  profaner  life. 
The  language  of  Worship  was  but  one  ;  though  the  jargons  of 
Opinion  were  many.  And  so  the  Scribes  and  the  Rabbis  of 
the  written  Word  supposed  themselves  to  hold  the  only  key 
of  life. 

But  the  Holy  Spirit  goes  into  no  one's  keeping,  and  is  no 
respecter  of  tongues.  Free  as  the  wind  to  blow  where  it  list- 
eth,  it  sweeps  wherever  souls  are  genial  to  its  breath,  and  will 
yield  to  it  their  gifts,  of  love,  of  lips,  of  life.  It  seemed  to 
have  had  enough  of  Hebrew,  ever  since  it  had  gone  into  the 
hands  of  the  philologists,  and  been  made  a  sacred  language, 
and  begun  to  drone.  It  had  long  been  feeling  its  way  in  other 
directions,  tempting  men  to  pray  out  of  the  fresh  heart,  and 
never  mind  the  words,  till  now  at  last  the  secret  broke,  that 
on  any  native  tongue  by  which  souls  most  freely  flow  together, 
may  all  pass  out  to  God ;  that  the  home-sounds  are  the  de- 
voutest  too ;  that  the  speech  into  which  men  are  born,  and 
which  has  become  to  them  as  a  stringed  instrument  answering 
to  the  faintest  touch  of  their  affections,  is  the  true  vehicle  by 
which  "the  Spirit  giveth  utterance."  The  prayer  of  faith, 
ascending  in  the  idioms  of  every  latitude,  converges  into  one 
in  heaven.  And  God's  truth,  descending  to  this  world,  breaks 
into  all  the  moulds  of  expression  native  to  our  various  race. 

One  Gospel  in  many  dialects,  —  that  is  the  great  Pentecost 
lesson,  construe  the  miracle  as  we  may.  And  there  are  dia- 
lects of  Thought  as  well  as  speech,  —  natural  differences  of 
temperament  and  character,  —  to  which  the  Gospel,  still  with- 
out prejudice  to  its  unity,  adapts  itself  with  the  same  divine 
flexibility.  What  private  observer  —  still  more  what  student 
of  history  —  can  doubt  that  we  are  not  all  made  in  the  same 
mould,  —  that  the  proportions  of  our  humanity  are  variously 


ONE    GOSPEL    IN   MANY   DIALECTS.  401 

mixed, — that  not  only  do  we  individually  differ  in  moral  sus- 
ceptibility and  spiritual  depth,  but  fall  into  permanent  groups 
marked  by  distinct  and  ineradicable  characters,  and  reprodu- 
cing the  same  religious  tendencies  from  age  to  age  ?  Trans- 
pose the  souls  of  Plato  and  Pascal  into  the  right  place  and 
time,  and  do  you  suppose  they  would  turn  up  as  Latitudina- 
rian  Divines  ?  Deal  as  you  will  with  the  lot  of  Priestley  and 
Belsham,  and  could  you  ever  enroll  them  among  the  Chris- 
tian Mystics  ?  Close  in  the  fires  of  Augustine's  nature  with 
what  damps  you  may,  and  could  you  ever  find  him  peace  in  a 
Gospel  of  Good  Works  ?  No ;  we  touch  here  on  differences 
deeper  than  accident,  and  irremovable  by  culture,  —  differen- 
ces that  vindicate  their  reality  by  crossing  the  lines  of  dissim- 
ilar religions  and  reappearing  in  all  times.  They  necessarily 
give  us  differing  wants  and  experiences  ;  they  set  into  differ- 
ing shapes  of  faith ;  and  on  souls  equally  faithful  they  fix  very 
differing  expressions.  They  are  so  many  vernacular  idioms 
of  the  inner  mind:  all  have  divine  right  to  be:  no  one  of 
them  is  entitled  to  call  itself  the  sacred  language  alone  intel- 
ligible between  man  and  God ;  and  the  pretension  of  any  to 
supersede  the  rest,  and  reign  alone,  is  not  less  vain  than  the 
complaints  of  ignorance  against  foreign  dialects,  and  the  am- 
bition to  exchange  the  many  running  waters  of  local  literature 
into  the  huge  tank  of  a  universal  language.  They  may  not 
be  able  to  understand  each  other,  or  even  with  the  key  of 
outward  comparison  always  bear  translation  into  idioms  other 
than  their  own.  But  let  them  speak  in  their  own  way,  and 
pray  their  own  prayer.  Not  only  are  they  all  clear  to  Him 
that  readeth  the  heart ;  there  will  thus  be  more  heart  for  Him 
to  read:  for  faith  and  love,  large  as  they  may  be,  are  ever 
deepest  in  their  special  tones  ;  and  the  prayer,  the  hymn, 
which  is  touched  with  the  spirit's  local  coloring,  comes  to  us 
like  the  aroma  of  native  fields,  and  assuages  our  thirst  like 
the  sweet  waters  of  some  well  given  to  our  fathers  and  made 
sacred  by  a  Saviour's  noonday  rest. 

On  this  principle,  —  that  different  types  of  natural  genius 
in  men  cannot  but  throw  their  Cliristianity  into  different  forms, 
34* 


402         ONE  GOSPEL  IN  MANY  DIALECTS. 

—  we  may  not  only  justify  the  divisions  of  Christendom,  but 
even  cease  to  wish  that  they  should  disappear.  Unity  no 
doubt  there  must  be :  God  is  one ;  Truth  is  one ;  the  Gospel 
is  one ;  and  a  mind  that  could  take  in  the  whole,  and  spread 
its  insight  and  affections  in  all  dimensions  at  once,  would  reach 
the  Divine  equilibrium,  in  which  nothing  partial  preponderates. 
But  from  our  watch-tower  we  can  look  through  only  one  win- 
dow at  once ;  the  blind  walls  of  our  mental  chamber  shut  out 
all  the  rest ;  and  as  we  kneel,  like  Daniel,  at  the  open  light, 
the  breeze  upon  our  face  seems  sacred,  because  it  comes  from 
our  Jerusalem.  The  question  is  not,  whether  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  truth,  rounded  off,  self-balanced,  and  complete ;  in  the 
mind  of  God,  —  the  final  seat  of  reality,  —  of  course  there  is. 
Nor  is  it  a  question,  whether  each  individual  man  can  attain 
a  faith  consistent  in  its  parts,  agreeable  to  fact,  and  adequate 
to  his  nature.  This  also  is  possible.  But  when  he  has  at- 
tained it,  on  what  terms  is  it  to  co-exist  with  other  faiths  pre- 
senting parallel  pretensions  ?  Is  he  in  his  heart  to  identify 
his  own  with  the  absolute  truth,  sufficient  for  all  as  for  him- 
self? Is  he  to  expect  them  to  come  round  to  it,  and  altogeth- 
er throw  away  their  own  ?  Or  is  he  to  confess  to  himself  his 
own  limitations,  to  suspect  that  he  may  have  his  blind  sides, 
and  reverently  to  seek  something  he  has  missed  in  that  which 
others  persist  in  seeing?  In  which  direction  is  he  to  seek 
unity  ?  By  antipathy  to  all  beliefs  save  one  ?  —  or  by  inviting 
all  of  them  to  live  their  life  and  show  their  place  in  human 
nature  ?  It  is  the  genius  of  Romanism  to  seek  unity  by  sup- 
pression ;  of  Protestantism,  by  free  development ;  —  of  the  for- 
mer, to  protect  the  consistency  it  has  ;  of  the  latter,  to  press  for- 
ward to  one  that  it  has  not.  Are  we  taunted  with  our  "  Prot- 
estant variations  "  ?  Why,  the  more  they  are,  the  richer  is 
our  field  of  experience,  the  finer  our  points  of  comparison  ; 
provided,  however,  that  we  hold  fast  to  the  noble  trust  in  a 
Gospel  of  identity  at  bottom,  and  seek  it  rather  in  the  relig- 
ious heart  of  all  the  churches,  than  in  the  theologic  wisdom  of 
our  own.  No  man  can  proclaim  the  principle  of  "  One  Gos- 
pel in  many  dialects"  unless  he  is  prepared  to  admit  that  his 


ONE    GOSPEL    IN    MANY   DIALECTS.  403 

own  faith  is  one  of  the  dialects,  and  nothing  more  ;  to  presume 
a  meaning  in  the  others,  however  hid  from  him ;  and  while 
they  remain  to  him  a  mere  inarticulate  jargon,  to  ascribe  it 
sooner  to  his  own  incapacity  than  to  their  insignificance. 
When  God's  truth,  refracted  on  its  entrance  into  our  nature, 
shall  emerge  into  the  white  light  again,  not  one  of  these 
tinted  beams  can  be  spared.  Let  us  for  a  moment  arrest  and 
examine  them.  Let  us  look  at  the  chief  varieties  which 
Christianity  assumes  as  it  penetrates  the  soul ;  at  once  recog- 
nizing our  own  place,  and  appreciating  that  of  others. 

There  are  three  great  types  of  natural  mind  on  which  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  may  fall ;  and  each,  touched  and  awakened  by 
him,  "  utters  the  wonderful  works  of  God  "  in  a  language  of 
its  own. 

(1.)  There  is  the  Ethical  mind,  calm,  level,  and  clear; 
chiefly  intent  on  the  good-ordering  of  this  life ;  judging  all 
things  by  their  tendency  to  this  end ;  and  impatient  of  every 
oscillation  of  our  nature  that  swings  beyond  it.  There  is 
nothing  low  or  unworthy  in  the  attachment  which  keeps  this 
spirit  close  to  the  present  world,  and  watchful  for  its  affairs. 
It  is  not  a  selfish  feeling,  but  often  one  intensely  social  and 
humane ;  not  any  mean  fascination  with  mere  material  inter- 
ests, but  a  devotion  to  justice  and  right,  and  an  assertion  of 
the  sacred  authority  of  human  duties  and  affections.  A  man 
thus  tempered  deals  chiefly  with  this  visible  life  and  his  com- 
rades in  it,  because,  as  nearest  to  him,  they  are  the  better 
known.  He  plants  his  standard  on  the  present,  as  on  a  van- 
tage-ground, where  he  can  survey  his  field,  and  manoeuvre  all 
his  force,  and  compute  the  battle  he  is  to  fight.  Whatever  his 
bearing  towards  fervors  beyond  his  range,  he  has  no  insensibil- 
ity to  the  claims  that  fall  within  his  acknowledged  province, 
and  that  appeal  to  him  in  the  native  speech  of  his  humanity. 
He  so  reverences  veracity,  honor,  and  good  faith,  as  to  expect 
them  like  the  daylight,  and  hear  of  their  violation  with  a  flush 
of  scorn.  His  word  is  a  rock,  and  he  expects  that  yours  will 
not  be  a  quicksand.  If  you  are  lax,  you  cannot  hope  for  his 
trust ;  but  if  you  are  in  trouble,  you  easily  move  his  pity. 


404  ONE    GOSPEL    IN    MANY    DIALECTS. 

And  the  sight  of  a  real  oppression,  though  the  sufferer  be  no 
ornamental  hero,  but  black,  unsightly,  and  disreputable,  suf- 
fices perhaps  to  set  him  to  work  for  life,  that  he  may  expunge 
the  disgrace  from  the  records  of  mankind.  Such  men  as  he 
constitute  for  our  world  its  moral  centre  of  gravity  ;  and  who- 
ever would  compute  the  path  of  improvement  that  has  brought 
it  thus  far  on  its  way,  or  trace  its  sweep  into  a  brighter  future, 
must  take  account  of  their  steady  mass. 

The  effect  of  this  style  of  thought  and  taste  on  the  religion 
of  its  possessor  is  not  difficult  to  trace.  It  may,  no  doubt, 
stop  short  of  avowed  and  conscious  religion  altogether;  its 
basis  being  simply  moral,  and  its  scene  temporal,  its  conditions 
may  be  imagined  as  complete,  without  any  acknowledgment 
of  higher  relations.  But,  practically,  this  is  an  exceptional 
case.  A  deep  and  reverential  sense  of  Moral  Authority 
passes  irresistibly  into  Faith  in  a  Moral  Governor  ;  and  Con- 
science, as  it  rises,  culminates  in  Worship.  And  to  such  nat- 
ural religion,  the  hearty  reception  of  the  revealed  Gospel  is 
so  congenial  a  sequel,  that  Christianity  has  enlisted  its  chief 
body-guard  —  its  band  of  Immortals  —  from  the  writers  of 
this  school.  In  the  form  which  they  give  to  the  faith,  they 
are  true  to  themselves,  still  keeping  close  to  the  human,  and, 
except  to  sanction  and  glorify  this,  not  apt  to  dwell  upon  the 
Divine.  The  second  table  of  commandment  has  more  reality 
to  them  than  the  first ;  and  the  whole  of  religion  presents  it- 
self to  their  mind  under  the  idea  of  Law.  God  in  Christ 
teaches  us  his  Will ;  publishes  the  punishment  and  the  re- 
ward ;  and  requires  our  obedience  ;  aiding  us  in  it  by  the 
perfect  example  of  Christ,  and  reassuring  us  under  failure  by 
the  offer  of  pardon  on  repentance.  Now  this  is  a  true  Gos- 
pel ;  not  a  proposition  of  it  can  be  gainsaid  ;  and  whoever  from 
his  heart  can  repeat  this  creed,  —  God  is  holy  ;  morality,  di- 
vine ;  penitence,  availing ;  goodness,  immortal ;  guilt,  secure 
of  retribution  ;  and  Christ,  our  pattern  for  both  lives,  —  is  not 
far  from  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  and  has  a  faith  as  much 
beyond  the  practice,  as  it  is  short  of  the  professions,  of  the 
great  mass  of  Christians.  If  he  has  an  equable,  rational,  and 


ONE    GOSPEL    IN   MANY   DIALECTS.  405 

balanced  nature  ;  if  he  can  depend  on  himself,  and  reduce  his 
will  to  the  discipline  of  rules ;  if  he  have  affections  temper- 
ate enough  to  follow  reason  instead  of  lead  it,  and  to  love  God 
by  sense  of  fitness  and  word  of  command ;  if  moral  prudence 
is  so  strong  in  him  that  he  can  bear  the  idea  of  "  doing  good 
for  the  sake  of  everlasting  happiness  "  ;  if  no  wing  ever  beats 
in  his  soul  that  takes  him  off  his  feet ;  —  his  wants  are  provid- 
ed ;  he  has  guidance  for  the  problems  that  will  meet  him  on 
his  way,  —  indications  of  duty,  —  grounds  of  trust,  —  and  a 
path  traced  through  every  Gethsemane  and  Calvary  of  this 
world,  to  the  saintly  peace  of  another. 

But  while  this  is  a  true  Gospel,  is  it  the  whole  Gospel  ?  Not 
so ;  unless  the  voice  of  the  Saviour  is  to  reach  only  a  part  of 
our  humanity,  and  in  response  draw  but  a  "  little  flock."  For 
not  many  of  our  race  are  made  of  this  even  and  unfermenting 
clay.  Who  can  deny  that  there  abound,  —  and  among  the 
greatest  names  of  Christian  history,  — 

(2.)  Passionate  natures,  that  cannot  thus  work  out  their  own 
salvation,  but  ever  pray  to  be  taken  whither  of  themselves  they 
cannot  go  ?  It  is  not  that  they  are  necessarily  weak  of  will, 
deficient  ha  self-control,  and  unequal  to  the  human  moralities. 
Rather  is  it,  that  they  get  through  all  these,  and  yet  can  find 
no  peace.  Duty,  as  men  measure  it,  may  be  satisfied ;  but 
still  the  face  of  God  does  not  lift  up  its  light.  For  want  of 
that  answering  look,  it  is  all  as  the  tillage  of  the  black  desert ; 
digging  by  night  without  a  heaven  above,  and  sowing  in  sands 
which  no  dew  shall  fertilize.  Intense  and  effectuating  resolve 
was  certainly  not  wanting  in  Luther ;  what  his  young  con- 
science imposed,  his  will  achieved,  —  wasting  asceticism,  per- 
severing devotion,  humble  charities  ;  yet  the  shadow  of  death 
brooded  around  his  irreproachable  obedience.  Is  it  not  that 
the  same  sorrow  which,  in  more  level  minds,  is  brought  by  a 
fall  of  the  will,  arises  in  these  men  from  the  ascent  of  their 
aspirations  ?  Haunted  by  the  image  of  God's  Holiness,  drawn 
to  it,  yet  fluttering  helplessly  at  immeasurable  depths  below 
it,  they  strain  after  an  obedience  they  cannot  reach,  and  never 
lose  the  sense  of  infinite  failure.  Measured  by  their  aims, 


406         ONE  GOSPEL  IN  MANY  DIALECTS. 

their  power  is  nothing.  Did  the  law  of  Christ  require  nothing 
but  works  which  the  hand  could  do,  its  conditions  would  be 
finite,  and  might  be  satisfied.  But  its  claims  sweep  through 
the  affections  of  the  soul ;  and  who  can  make  himself  love 
where  he  is  cold?  who  set  himself  behind  his  own  thoughts, 
and  keep  guilty  intruders  outside  the  door  of  his  nature  ?  Im- 
possible !  the  inner  life,  which  is  the  special  seat  of  our  divine 
concerns,  evades  our  laboring  prudence,  and  tortures  con- 
science without  obeying  it.  How  then  do  these  sufferers  find 
their  emancipation  ?  They  have  a  Gospel,  according  to  which 
Christ  is  not  given  as  the  Teacher  of  Law,  but  set  up  as  the 
personal  object  of  pure  Trust  and  Love.  God  sent  his  Son 
in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  to  mitigate  the  Divine  into  gen- 
tleness, to  elevate  the  Human  into  holiness,  and  show  how 
there  is  one  moral  perfection  for  both ;  surrendered  him  to 
humiliation  and  self-sacrifice ;  placed  him  in  heaven ;  and  of- 
fered to  accept  pure  faith  and  love  towards  Mm  as  the  recon- 
ciling term  for  the  human  soul,  —  as  the  substitute  for  an 
unattainable  ideal  of  obedience.  Here  then  is  the  salvation 
of  these  passionate  natures.  This  simple  trust,  this  intense 
affection,  is  precisely  what  they  have  to  give.  They  cannot 
direct  themselves;  but  only  fix  their  love,  and  you  may  lead 
them  as  a  child.  Self-discipline  is  impossible  ;  self-escape  tri- 
umphant. Try  from  within  to  hold  the  struggling  winds  of 
their  nature  with  iron  bands  of  law,  and  you  do  but  stir  the 
sleeping  storms.  Set  in  the  heavens  without  an  orb  of  divine 
attraction, — a  new  star  in  the  East,  —  and  you  carry  their 
whole  atmosphere  away.  Engage  their  faith;  and  for  the 
first  time  they  will  prevail  over  their  work.  Let  there  be  an 
appeal  of  Grace  to  their  enthusiasm,  —  a  whispered  word, 
"  Lovest  thou  me?"  —  and  the  very  burden  that  was  too  heavy 
to  be  borne  loses  all  its  weight ;  and  the  drudging  mill  of 
habit,  that  seemed  so  servile  once,  they  pace  with  songs  and 
joy.  There  are  men  who  so  need  to  be  thus  carried  out  of 
themselves,  that  without  it  their  nature  runs  to  waste,  or  burns 
away  with  self-consuming  fires.  They  are  like  one  who,  in  a 
dream,  should  set  himself  to  climb  a  far-off  mountain-top ;  if 


ONE    GOSPEL    IN    MANY   DIALECTS.  407 

he  tries  to  run,  he  cannot  even  creep,  and  only  wakes  himself 
to  find  that  he  lies  still  on  the  bed  of  nature.  But  if  the 
thought  of  his  mind  should  be,  that  an  overmastering  power 
—  chariot  of  fire  and  horses  of  fire  —  lifts  him  away,  he 
floats  through  the  clear  space,  till,  without  effort,  his  feet  stand 
upon  the  visionary  hills. 

Here  then,  again,  —  in  this  doctrine  of  Faith,  —  we  have  a 
true  Gospel,  speaking  to  many  hearts  impenetrable  by  the 
doctrine  of  Works.  But  have  we  even  yet  the  whole  Gos- 
pel ?  Has  the  Good  Shepherd,  in  these  two  words,  made  his 
voice  known  to  all  that  are  his  ?  Or  are  there  other  sheep 
still  to  be  gathered  that  are  not  of  these  folds?  I  believe 
there  are.  For  thus  far  we  have  looked  only  at  the  moral  side 
of  Christian  doctrine,  —  at  its  different  answers  to  the  problem 
of  Sin,  —  at  the  conditions  of  ultimate  acceptance  with  God, 
notwithstanding  deep  unworthiness.  Whether  you  say,  Pa- 
tiently obey,  and  you  shall  grow  into  perfection  of  faith  and 
love  ;  or,  Fling  yourself  on  faith  and  love,  and  you  will  find 
grace  for  patient  obedience ;  —  in  either  case  you  are  prescrib- 
ing terms  of  salvation ;  you  have  the  future  life  specially  in 
mind,  and  are  anxious  to  make  ready  the  soul  there  to  meet 
her  God.  But  there  are  persons  who  cannot  fix  any  partic- 
ular solicitude  upon  that  crisis,  as  if  all  before  were  probation, 
and  all  after  were  judgment,  —  as  if  here  were  only  faith  in 
an  absent,  and  there  sight  of  a  present  God ;  —  who  cannot 
dramatically  divide  existence  into  a  two-act  piece,  first  Time, 
then  Eternity,  and  wait  for  the  Infinite  Presence,  till  the  cur- 
tain rises  between  them;  but  are  haunted  by  the  feeling  that, 
as  Tune  is  in  Eternity,  so  is  Man  already  shut  up  in  God. 
This  is  the  indigenous  sentiment  of  another  natural  type  of 
mind,  which  may  be  called,  — 

(3.)  The  Spiritual.  God  is  a  Spirit ;  man  has  a  spirit ; 
both,  Now;  both,  Here;  and  shall  they  never  meet?  shall 
they  remain  without  exchange  of  looks  ?  shall  nothing  break 
the  seal  of  eternal  silence  ?  is  there  really  love  between  them, 
and  thought,  and  purpose,  and  yet  all  recognition  dumb? 
Why  tell  us  of  God's  Omniscience,  if  it  only  sleeps  around  MS 


408  ONE    GOSPEL    IN    MANY   DIALECTS. 

like  dead  space,  or  at  most  lies  watching,  like  a  sentinel  of 
the  universe,  not  free  to  stir  ?  Who  could  ever  pray  to  this 
motionless  Immensity  ?  who  weep  his  griefs  to  rest  on  a  Pity 
so  secret  and  reserved  ?  Surely  if  He  is  a  Living  Mind,  he 
not  merely  remains  over  from  a  Divine  Past  to  appear  again 
in  a  Divine  Future,  but  moves  through  the  immediate  hours, 
and  awakens  a  thousand  sanctities  to-day.  Urged  by  such 
questionings  as  these,  men  of  meditative  piety  have  thirsted 
for  conscious  communion  with  the  All-holy  ;  —  communion  both 
ways :  appeal  and  response ;  a  crossing  line  of  light  from  eye 
to  eye;  a  quiet  walk  with  God,  where  all  the  dust  of  life 
turns,  at  his  approach,  into  the  green  meadow,  and  its  flat 
pools  into  the  gliding  waters.  They  have  retired  within  to 
meet  him ;  have  believed  that  all  is  not  ours  that  it  is  ours  to 
feel ;  that  there  is  Grace  of  his  mingling  with  the  inner  fibres 
of  our  nature,  and  flinging  in,  across  the  constant  warp  of  our 
personality,  flying  tints  of  deeper  beauty,  and  hints  of  a  pat- 
tern more  divine.  And  all  have  agreed,  that,  in  order  to  reach 
this  Holy  Spirit,  and  through  its  vivifying  touch  be  born 
again,  the  one  thing  needful  is  a  stripping  off  of  self,  an  aban- 
donment of  personal  desire  and  will,  a  return  to  simplicity, 
and  a  docile  listening  to  the  whispers  spontaneous  from  God. 
They  find  all  sin  to  be  a  rising  up  of  self;  all  return  to  holi- 
ness and  peace  a  sinking  down  from  self,  a  free  surrender  of 
the  soul,  —  that  asks  nothing,  possesses  nothing,  that  relaxes 
every  rigid  strain,  and  is  pliant  to  go  whither  the  highest  Will 
may  lead.  Nature,  of  her  own  foolishness,  ever  goes  astray 
in  her  quest  of  divine  things  ;  wandering  away  in  flights  of 
laboring  Reason  to  find  her  God  ;  panting  with  over-plied 
resolve  to  do  her  work;  scheming  rules,  and  artifices,  and 
bonds  of  union  for  forming  her  individuals  into  a  Church. 
Reverse  all  this,  and  fall  back  on  the  centre  of  the  Spirit,  in- 
stead of  pressing  out  in  all  radii  of  your  own.  Let  Intellect 
droop  her  ambitious  wing,  and  come  home ;  there,  in  the  in- 
most room  of  conscience,  God  seeks  you  all  the  while.  Lash 
your  wearied  sti-ength  no  more ;  sit  low  and  weak  upon  the 
ground,  with  loving  readiness  hitherward  or  thitherward,  and 


ONE    GOSPEL    IN    MANY    DIALECTS.  409 

you  shall  be  taken  through  your  work  with  a  sevenfold  strength 
that  has  no  effort  in  it.  Leave  yourself  awhile  in  utter  soli- 
tude, shut  out  all  thoughts  of  other  men,  yield  up  whatever 
intervenes,  though  it  be  the  thinnest  film,  between  your  soul 
and  God ;  and  in  this  absolute  loneliness,  the  germ  of  a  holy 
society  will  of  itself  appear,  a  temper  of  sympathy  and  mercy, 
trustful  and  gentle,  suffuses  itself  through  the  whole  mind: 
though  you  have  seen  no  one,  you  have  met  all ;  and  are  girt 
for  any  errand  of  service  that  love  may  find.  So  then,  if 
there  were  twenty  or  a  thousand  in  this  case,  their  wills  would 
flow  together  of  their  own  accord,  and  find  themselves  in 
brotherhood  without  a  plan  at  all. 

So  speaks  this  doctrine  of  the  Spirit.  It  matters  not  now 
under  which  of  its  many  theologic  forms  we  conceive  it ;  sim- 
plest perhaps,  that  the  Indwelling  God,  who  in  Christ  was  the 
Word,  is  in  us  the  Comforter.  But  surely,  this  also  is  not 
altogether  a  false  Gospel.  It  rescues  the  conception  of  direct 
communion  between  the  human  spirit  and  the  Divine,  —  a 
conception  essential  to  the  Christian  life,  —  which  an  Ethical 
Gospel  does  not  adequately  secure :  for  communion  must  be 
between  like  and  like,  while  obedience  may  be  from  slave  to 
lord,  nay,  in  some  sense,  from  machine  to  maker.  Nor  is  it 
a  slight  thing  to  take  the  scales  from  our  eyes  that  hide  from 
us  the  sanctities  of  our  immediate  life ;  to  abolish  the  post- 
ponement of  eternity  ;  and,  wayfarers  as  we  are,  make  us  feel, 
as  we  rise  from  our  stony  pillow  and  pass  on,  that  here  is  the 
abode  of  God,  and  here  does  the  angel-ladder  touch  the 
ground !  Yet  this  too  is  not  the  whole  Gospel.  It  absorbs 
too  much  in  God.  It  scarcely  saves  human  personality  and 
responsibility.  It  does  no  justice  to  nature,  which  it  regards 
as  the  negative  of  God.  It  melts  away  Law  in  Love,  and 
hides  the  rocky  structure  of  this  moral  world  in  a  sunny  haze 
that  confuses  earth  and  air. 

What,  then,  shall  we  say  of  these  three  types  of  Christian 

faith?      Do   you    doubt   their   reality?     It   is  demonstrated 

within  the  century  which  we  close  this  day.     For  while  our 

forefathers  were  dedicating  this  house  of  prayer  to  the  first, 

35 


410  ONE    GOSPEL    IN   MANY   DIALECTS. 

the  Gospel  of  Christian  Duty,  Wesley  had  already  become 
the  prophet  of  the  last,  —  the  new  birth  of  the  Spirit ;  and 
erelong  Evangelicism  started  up,  and  proclaimed  the  second, 
—  the  Salvation  by  Faith.  Do  you  doubt  their  durability 
and  permanence  ?  It  is  proved  by  eighteen  centuries'  expe- 
rience, for  the  New  Testament  is  not  older.  There,  within 
the  group  of  sacred  books  themselves,  do  they  all  lie  ;  the  Jew- 
ish Gospels  represent  the  first ;  the  Gentile  Apostle's  letters, 
the  second ;  the  writings  of  the  beloved  disciple,  the  third. 
Matthew,  as  every  reader  must  remark,  is  for  the  Law ;  Paul, 
for  Faith  ;  and  John,  for  the  Spirit.  And,  in  every  age,  the 
great  mass  of  Christian  tendencies  break  themselves  into  these 
three  forms  :  —  Ebionite,  Pauline,  and  contemplative  Gnostic ; 
Pelagian,  Augustinian,  and  Mystic ;  Jesuit,  Jansenist,  and 
Quietist ;  Arminian,  Lutheran,  and  Quaker  ;  all  proclaim  the 
perseverance  of  the  same  essential  types,  wherever  the  spirit 
of  Christ  alights  upon  the  various  heart  of  man. 

Is  Christ  then  divided?  Is  he  not  equal  to  the  whole  of 
our  humanity  ?  Rather  let  us  say,  that  we  are  small  and 
weak  for  the  measure  of  his  heavenly  wisdom.  Doubtless,  if 
we  take  what  we  can  hold,  and  put  it  to  faithful  application, 
we  have  grace  enough  for  every  personal  exigency.  But 
there  is,  surely,  an  evil  inseparable  from  all  partial  develop- 
ments of  religion,  which  only  satisfy  the  immediate  cravings 
of  the  mind,  and  leave  parts  of  our  nature  —  asleep  perhaps 
at  the  moment  —  liable  to  wake  and  thirst  again.  Such  sep- 
arate growths  run  out  their  resources  and  exhaust  themselves 
in  a  few  generations.  At  first,  they  answer  to  some  felt  want ; 
they  collect  a  congenial  multitude,  and  open  to  them  a  spir- 
itual refuge  that  ends  their  wanderings.  But  the  sentiment, 
once  brought  into  a  contented  state,  ceases  to  be  importunate 
and  prominent ;  and  by  its  abatement  gives  opportunity  for 
other  feelings  to  vindicate  their  existence.  "When  the  wound 
is  bound  up  and  has  lost  its  smart,  the  natural  hunger  begins 
to  tell.  The  children  grow  up  other  than  the  fathers,  perhaps 
quite  as  limited,  only  in  different  ways,  —  with  affections 
pressing  into  just  the  vacant  places  of  an  earlier  age.  Mean- 


ONE    GOSPEL    IN    MANY   DIALECTS.  411 

while,  the  imperfection  of  the  original  basis  has  provoked 
reactions  equally  of  narrow  scope,  —  equally  incapable  of 
permanently  filling  the  capacities  of  the  Christian  mind. 
Hence  the  danger,  if  the  separate  veins  of  thought  be  still 
worked  on  as  they  thin  away,  that  the  sects  should  degener- 
ate into  poor  theological  egotisms,  and  wear  themselves  in- 
sensibly out.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  all  the  three  religious 
movements  of  the  last  century  —  represented  by  Taylor,  by 
Wesley,  by  Cowper  —  exhibit  the  symptoms  of  spent  strength, 
and  are  little  likely  to  play  again  the  part  they  have  played 
before. 

Yet  every  one  of  their  Gospels  is  true  at  heart ;  and  the 
tree  that  holds  that  pith  is  a  tree  of  life,  which  the  Eternal 
husbandman  hath  planted ;  and  if  he  prune  it,  it  is  only  that 
it  may  bear  more  fruit.  The  weakness  of  these  faiths  is  in 
their  isolation  ;  and  if  their  sap  could  but  mingle,  if  no  ele- 
ment were  lost  which  they  can  draw  from  the  root  of  the 
vine,  a  young  frondescent  life  would  show  itself  again.  Those 
who  think  that  the  future  can  only  repeat  the  past,  will  deem 
this  impossible ;  though  least  of  all  should  it  appear  ?o  to  us 
who  profess  ourselves  "  Christians  and  only  Christians" 
pledged  to  nothing  but  to  lie  open  to  all  God's  truth.  For 
myself  I  indulge  a  joyful  hope  that  the  next  century  of  Chris- 
tendom will  be  nobler  than  the  last;  that  the  great  Faiths 
which  have  struggled  separately  into  the  light  of  the  one,  will 
flow  together  on  the  broader  and  less  broken  surface  of  the 
other.  If,  however,  this  is  to  be,  it  will  arise  from  no  mere 
intellectual  scrutiny,  whose  function  will  ever  be  to  distin- 
guish, and  not  to  unite,  and,  in  proportion  as  it  dominates 
alone,  to  trace  ever-new  lines  of  critical  divergency.  When 
the  problem  of  Christendom  is,  to  deliver  the  individual  mind 
from  the  operation  of  an  overwhelming  social  power,  then  it 
is  seasonable  to  insist  on  the  principle  of  free  inquiry ;  be- 
cause then  you  have  a  dead  mass  to  disintegrate,  ere  any 
young  and  living  force  can  urge  its  way.  But  when  you  have 
won  this  victory,  and  when  individualism  ceases  to  be  devout 
and  tends  to  party  self-will,  the  hour  comes  to  proclaim  the 


412          ONE  GOSPEL  IN  MANY  DIALECTS. 

converse  lesson,  and  break  up  the  vain  reliance  on  mere  liberty 
of  thought.  Depend  upon  it,  Unity  lies  in  profounder  strata 
of  our  nature  than  any  tillage  of  the  mere  intellect  can  reach. 
Sink  deeply  into  the  inmost  life  of  any  Christian  faith,  and 
you  will  touch  the  ground  of  all.  Did  we  do  nothing  with 
our  religion  except  live  by  it ;  did  we  forget  the  presence  of 
doubt  and  contradiction;  did  it  cease  to  be  a  creed  about 
God  and  become  simply  an  existence  in  God  ;  did  we  ex- 
change self-assertion  before  men  for  self-surrender  to  him  ;  — 
we  should  find  ourselves  side  by  side  with  unexpected  friends, 
should  be  astonished  at  our  petulant  divisions,  and  replace 
the  poor  charity  of  mutual  forbearance  by  the  free  conscious- 
ness of  inward  sympathy.  For  us  especially,  who  feel  the 
temptations  of  an  exceptional  position,  is  it  the  prime  duty  to 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being  in  the  divine  sanctities  that 
hold  us,  in  that  which  we  have  not  been  obliged  to  throw 
away ;  else  might  our  Gospel  be  no  fruit-bearing  branch, 
drinking  from  the  root  of  the  vine,  but  a  dead  residuum,  with- 
ered and  hopeless.  Remember  that,  if  Sin  be  not  original, 
all  the  more  must  it  be  actual,  and  the  deeper  should  its 
shadow  lie  upon  the  Conscience,  and  touch  us  with  the  mood 
of  faithfulness  and  prayer.  If,  in  reconciling  man  with  God, 
there  is  no  vicarious  sacrifice  possible,  so  much  the  more  re- 
mains over  for  self-sacrifice,  as  the  only  path  of  communion 
and  peace.  If  you  will  have  it  that  Christ  is  only  human,  so 
much  the  more  Divine  is  your  humanity  to  be ;  you  cannot 
assume  that  as  the  type  of  your  nature,  without  at  least  own- 
ing that  its  essence  lies,  and  its  glory  is  found,  not  in  the  nat- 
ural man,  but  in  the  spiritual  man ;  and  by  this  very  con- 
fession, you  renounce  the  low  aims  of  the  worldly  mind,  and 
take  on  yourself  the  vows  of  the  saintly.  Let  believers  only 
be  true  to  the  grace  they  have,  and  more  will  be  given  ;  and 
enter  where  they  may  the  many-gated  sanctuary  of  the  Chris- 
tian life,  they  will  tend  ever  inwards  to  the  same  centre,  and 
meet  at  last  in  the  holiest  of  all.  Keeping  a  reverent  eye 
fixed  on  the  person  and  spirit  of  Christ,  they  cannot  but  find 
their  partial  apprehensions  corrected  and  enlarged ;  for  his 


ONE    GOSPEL   IN   MANY   DIALECTS.  413 

divine  image  is  complete  in  its  revelation,  and  rebukes  every 
narrower  Gospel.  Moral  perfectness,  divine  communion, 
free  self-sacrifice,  —  all  blend  in  him,  —  indistinguishable  ele- 
ments of  one  expression.  In  that  august  and  holy  presence, 
our  divisions  sink  abashed,  and  hear,  as  of  old,  the  word  of 
recall,  "  Ye  know  not  what  spirit  ye  are  of."  Or  if,  through 
our  infirmities,  that  gracious  form,  appearing  in  the  midst  as 
we  discourse  among  ourselves  and  are  perplexed  and  sad,  do 
not  suffice  to  open  our  eyes  and  make  us  less  slow  of  heart 
to  one  another  and  to  him,  at  least  in  that  higher  world, 
whither  our  forerunners  are  gone,  his  living  look  will  perfect 
the  communion  of  saints.  There  at  length  the  guests  of  his 
bounty  will  find  that,  though  at  separate  tables,  they  have  all 
been  fed  by  the  same  bread  of  life,  and  touched  their  lips 
with  the  same  wine  of  remembrance :  there,  the  voices  of  the 
wise,  often  discordant  here,  —  of  Taylor  and  Wesley,  of  En- 
field  and  Cowper,  of  Heber  and  Channing,  —  will  blend  in 
harmony ;  —  and  the  notes  of  the  last  age  will  not  be  the 
least  in  that  mighty  chorus  which  crowds  the  steps  of  eigh- 
teen centuries,  and,  converging  to  their  immortal  Head,  sings 
the  solemn  strain,  "Great  and  marvellous  are  thy  works, 
Lord  God  Almighty !  Just  and  true  are  all  thy  ways,  thou 
King  of  Saints  1 " 


35 


ST.  PAUL  AND  HIS  MODERN  STUDENTS. 


The  Life  and  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  By  the  Rev.  W.  J. 
CONYBEARE,  M.A.,  late  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge ;  and  the  Rev.  J.  S.  HOWSON,  M.A.,  Principal  of 
the  Collegiate  Institution,  Liverpool.  2  vols.  4to.  Long- 
mans. 1852. 

The  Epistles  of  St.  Pant  to  the  Corinthians:  with  Critical 
Notes  and  Dissertations.  By  ARTHUR  PENRHYN  STANLEY, 
M.A.,  Canon  of  Canterbury,  late  Fellow  and  Tutor  of 
University  College,  Oxford,  &c.  2  vols.  8vo.  Murray. 
1855. 

The  Epistles  of  St.  Paid  to  the  Thessalonians,  Galatians, 
Romans :  with  Critical  Notes  and  Dissertations.  By 
BENJAMIN  JOWETT,  M.A.,  Fellow  and  Tutor  of  Balliol 
College,  Oxford.  2  vols.  8vo.  Murray.  1855. 

THESE  treatises,  bearing  on  their  title-pages  the  names  of 
our  two  ecclesiastical  Universities,  give  happy  signs  of  a  new 
era  hi  English  theology.  They  show  how  effectually  we 
have  escaped  from  the  morbid  religious  phenomena  repre- 
sented by  Simeon  at  Cambridge,  and  the  counter-irritants 
applied  by  John  Henry  Newman  at  Oxford ;  and  come  as  the 
returning  breath  of  nature  to  those  who  have  witnessed  the 
fevers  of  "  Evangelical "  conversion  or  the  consumptive  as- 
ceticism of  "Anglican"  piety.  On  looking  back,  from  the 
position  now  attained,  it  seems  wonderful  that  we  could  ever, 


ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  415 

with  St.  Paul's  writings  in  our  hands,  have  been  betrayed  into 
either  of  these  opposite  extravagances  :  for  anything  more 
absolutely  foreign  to  his  breadth  and  universality  than  the 
Genevan  dogma,  or  more  at  variance  with  his  free  spiritual- 
ity than  the  sacramental  system,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive. 
But  it  is  the  peculiar  fate  of  sacred  writings,  that  the  last 
thing  elicited  from  them  is  their  own  real  meaning.  The 
very  greatness  of  their  authority  puts  the  reader's  faculties 
into  a  false  attitude;  creates  an  eagerness,  —  an  inflexible 
intensity,  —  that  defeats  its  own  end;  and,  in  particular,  gives 
undue  ascendency  to  the  uppermost  want  and  feeling  that 
may  be  craving  satisfaction.  Hence  the  tendency  of  Scrip- 
tural interpretation  to  proceed  by  action  and  reaction ;  an 
easy  ethical  Arminianism  being  succeeded  by  a  severe  Cal- 
vinism, and  the  reliance  on  individual  grace  giving  way  be- 
fore the  advance  of  sacerdotal  and  Church  ideas.  When  the 
opposite  errors  have  spent  themselves,  the  requisite  repose  of 
mind  will  be  recovered  for  reading  just  the  thought  that  lies 
upon  the  page :  here  and  there  an  eye  will  be  found,  neither 
strained  with  pre-occupying  visions,  not  scared  by  sceptic 
shadows,  but  clear  for  the  apprehension  of  reality,  as  God  has 
shaped  it  for  our  perception.  At  length  we  have  reached 
this  crisis  of  promise ;  and  critics  are  found  who,  instead  of 
interrogating  St.  Paul  on  all  sorts  of  modern  questions,  listen 
to  him  on  his  own ;  and  draw  from  him,  not  a  fancied  verdict 
on  the  sixteenth  century,  but  a  faithful  picture  of  the  first. 

And  for  this  historical  purpose,  the  writings  of  the  great 
Gentile  Apostle  are  of  paramount  value,  and  justly  occupy 
the  inquirer's  first  researches.  The  most  considerable  of 
them  are  of  unimpeachable  authenticity.  They  are  the  very 
earliest  Christian  writings  we  possess.  They  are  the  pro- 
ductions of  a  man  more  clearly  known  to  us  than  any  of  the 
first  missionaries  of  the  Gospel.  They  are  letters:  abounding 
in  disclosures  of  personal  feelings,  of  biographical  incident,  of 
changing  moods  of  thought,  of  outward  and  inward  conflict. 
They  are  addressed  to  young  communities,  scattered  over  a 
vast  area,  and  composed  of  differing  elements ;  and  exhibit 


416  ST.   PAUL   AND    HIS   MODERN   STUDENTS. 

the  whole  fermentation  of  their  new  life,  the  scruples,  the 
heart-burnings,  the  noble  inspirations,  the  grievous  factions, 
of  the  Apostolic  age.  The  Gospels  and  the  Book  of  Acts 
treat  no  doubt  of  a  prior  period,  but  proceed  from  a  posterior, 
of  whose  state  of  mind,  whose  retrospective  theories  concern- 
ing the  ministry  of  Christ,  it  is  of  primary  importance  to  the 
criticism  of  the  Evangelists  that  we  should  be  informed ;  and 
on  these  points  the  Pauline  Epistles  are  the  indispensable 
groundwork  of  all  our  knowledge  or  conjecture.  In  them  we 
catch  the  Christian  doctrine  and  tradition  at  an  earlier  stage 
than  any  other  canonical  book  represents  throughout.  Al- 
though the  narratives  of  the  New  Testament  doubtless  abound 
in  material  drawn  faithfully  from  a  more  primitive  time,  they 
are  certainly  not  free  from  the  touch  and  tincture  of  the  post- 
Pauline  age.  How  powerful  an  instrument  the  Apostle's 
letters  may  become  for  either  confirming  or  checking  the 
historical  records,  may  be  readily  conceived  by  every  reader 
of  Paley's  "  Hora?  Paulinas."  In  fine,  if  it  be  a  just  princi- 
ple, in  historical  criticism,  to  proceed  from  the  more  known 
to  the  less  known,  —  to  begin  from  a  date  that  yields  con- 
temporary documents,  and  work  thence  into  the  subjacent  and 
superjacent  strata  of  events,  —  the  elucidation  of  Christian 
antiquity  must  take  its  commencement  from  the  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul. 

Except  in  its  general  similarity  of  subject,  the  first  of  the 
three  works  mentioned  at  the  head  of  this  article  admits  of 
no  comparison  with  the  other  two.  It  is  rather  an  illustrated 
guide-book  to  the  Apostle's  world  of  place  and  time,  than  a 
personal  introduction  to  himself.  The  authors  are  highly 
accomplished  and  scholarly  men,  and  could  not  fail,  in  dealing 
with  an  historical  theme,  to  bring  together  and  group  with 
conscientious  skill  a  vast  store  of  archaeological  and  topo- 
graphical detail ;  to  weigh  chronological  difficulties  with  pa- 
tient care  ;  to  translate  with  philological  precision,  and  due 
aim  at  accuracy  of  text.  They  have  accordingly  produced  a 
truly  interesting  and  instructive  book :  so  instructive,  indeed, 
that  by  far  the  greater  part  of  its  information  would,  probably, 


•  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  417 

have  been  quite  new  to  St.  Paul  himself.  His  life  seems  to 
us  to  be  injudiciously  overlaid  with  what  is  wholly  foreign  to 
it,  and  for  the  sake  of  picturesque  effect  to  be  set  upon  a  stage 
quite  invisible  to  him.  He  was  not  "  Principal  of  a  Collegiate 
Institution,"  accustomed  to  examine  boys  in  Attic  or  Latian 
geography  ;  was  not  familiar  with  Thucydides  or  Grote ;  was 
indifferent  to  the  Amphictyonic  Council ;  and,  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  Salamis  and  Marathon,  probably  read  the  past  no 
more  than  a  Brahmin  would  in  travelling  over  Edgehill  or 
Marston  Moor.  The  world  of  each  man  must  be  measured 
from  his  own  spiritual  centre,  and  will  take  in  much  less  in 
one  direction,  much  more  in  another,  than  is  spread  beneath 
his  eye.  He  cannot  be  reached  by  geographical  approaches. 
You  may  determine  the  elements  of  his  orbit,  and  yet  miss 
him  after  all.  It  is  an  illusory  process  to  paint  the  ancient 
world  as  it  would  look  to  an  Hellenic  gentleman  then,  or  a 
university  scholar  now ;  and  then  think  how  St.  Paul  would 
feel  in  passing  through  it  to  convert  it.  The  indirect  influ- 
ence of  this  kind  of  conception  seems  to  us  apparent  both  in 
Mr.  Conybeare's  translation  and  Mr.  Howson's  narrative  and 
descriptions.  The  outward  scene  and  conditions  of  the  Apos- 
tle's career  are  elaborately  displayed ;  but  more  with  the 
modern  academic  than  with  the  old  Hebrew  tone  of  coloring  ; 
and  the  English  version,  scrupulous  and  delicate  as  it  is,  has, 
to  our  taste,  a  general  flavor  quite  different  from  the  original 
Greek.  Unconsciously  entangled  in  the  classifications  and 
symbols  of  the  Protestant  theology,  the  authors  are  detained 
outside  the  real  genius  and  feeling  of  the  Apostle. 

Of  a  far  higher  order  are  the  other  two  works,  —  produced, 
we  infer  from  their  numerous  correspondences  of  both  form 
and  substance,  not  without  concert  between  the  authors.  In- 
deed, the  same  explanation  of  the  merits  of  Lachmann's  text 
(printed  without  translation  by  Mr.  Stanley,  and  with  the 
adapted  authorized  version  by  Mr.  Jowett)  is  made  to  serve 
for  both.  So  clearly  and  compendiously  is  this  explanation 
drawn,  that,  in  the  next  edition  of  Lachmann,  Mr  Jowett's 
introduction  might  usefully  be  annexed  to  the  great  critic's 


418  ST.   PAUL    AND   HIS   MODEltN    STUDENTS. 

rather  tangled  and  awkward  preface.  Of  the  superior  fidelity 
of  this  recension,  we  think  no  habitual  reader  of  the  Greek 
Scriptures  can  reasonably  doubt ;  and  the  recognition  of  its 
authority  fulfils  a  prior  condition  of  all  scientific  theology. 
The  text  being  chosen  on  grounds  purely  critical,  the  notes 
are  written  in  a  spirit  purely  exegetical ;  they  aim,  simply 
and  with  rare  self-abnegation,  to  bring  out,  by  every  happy 
change  of  light  and  turn  of  reflective  sympathy,  the  great 
Apostle's  real  thought  and  feeling.  How  very  far  this  faith- 
ful historic  purpose  in  itself  raises  the  interpreter  above  the 
crowd  of  erudite  and  commenting  divines,  can  scarcely  be 
understood  till  it  has  formed  a  new  generation,  and  fixed  it- 
self as  a  distinct  intellectual  type.  It  is  not,  however,  an 
affair  of  mere  will  and  disposition ;  but,  like  most  of  the 
higher  exercises  of  veracity,  comes  into  operation  only  as  the 
last  result  of  mental  tact  and  affluence.  With  the  most 
honest  intentions  towards  St.  Paul,  a  critic  without  psycho- 
logical insight  and  dialectic  pliancy,  without  power  of  melting 
down  his  modern  abstractions  and  redistributing  them  in  the 
moulds  of  the  old  realistic  thought,  —  a  critic  without  en- 
trance into  the  passionate  depths  of  human  nature,  —  a  critic 
preoccupied  by  Catholic  or  Protestant  assumptions,  and  un- 
trained to  imagine  the  questions  and  interests  of  the  first  age, 
—  cannot  surrender  himself  to  the  natural  impression  of  the 
Apostle's  language.  The  disciple  and  the  master  arc,  in  such 
case,  at  cross-purposes  with  one  another ;  the  questions  put 
are  not  the  questions  answered;  the  interlocutors  do  not  really 
meet,  but  wind  in  a  maze  about  each  other's  loci,  not  to  end 
till  the  unconscious  interpreter  has  set  his  fantasies  within 
the  shadow  of  inspiration.  No  such  blind  chase  is  possible 
to  our  authors.  They  have  achieved  the  conditions  of  fidelity; 
and  bring  to  a  task,  in  which  the  truthful  and  sagacious  spirit 
of  Locke  had  already  fixed  the  standard  high,  the  ampler 
resources  of  modern  learning,  and  more  practised  habit  of 
historic  combination.  In  the  distribution  of  their  work,  the 
difference  of  natural  genius  between  the  two  authors  has  per- 
haps been  consulted,  and  is,  at  all  events,  distinctly  expressed. 


ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  419 

Mr.  Stanley's  aptitude  for  reproducing  the  image  of  the  past, 
his  apprehensive  sympathy  with  the  concrete  and  individual 
elements  of  the  world,  fitly  engage  themselves  with  the  com- 
posite forms  of  Corinthian  society,  and  the  most  personal, 
various,  and  objective  of  the  Apostle's  letters.  For  the  more 
speculative  Epistles  to  the  Galatians  and  the  Romans,  there 
was  need  of  Mr.  Jowett's  philosophical  depth  and  subtilty. 
The  strictness  with  which  he  restrains  these  seductive  gifts  to 
the  proper  business  of  the  interpreter,  is  not  less  admirable 
than  their  occasional  happy  application.  Instead  of  being 
employed  to  force  upon  the  Apostle  a  logical  precision  foreign 
to  his  habit,  they  are  chiefly  engaged  in  detecting  and  wip- 
ing out  false  niceties  of  distinction  drawn  by  later  theology, 
and  throwing  back  each  doctrinal  statement  into  its  original 
degree  of  indeterminateness.  It  is  not  in  the  notes,  —  which 
are  wholly  occupied  in  recovering  St.  Paul's  own  thought,  — 
but  in  the  interposed  disquisitions,  which  avowedly  deal  with 
the  theology  of  to-day,  that  a  certain  breadth  and  balance  of 
statement,  and  delicate  ease  in  manoeuvring  the  forms  and 
antitheses  of  abstract  thought,  and  fine  appreciation  of  human 
experience,  make  us  feel  the  double  presence  of  metaphysical 
power  and  historical  tact.  The  author,  accordingly,  appears 
to  us,  not  only  to  have  seized  the  great  Apostle's  attitude  of 
mind  more  happily  than  any  preceding  English  critic,  but 
also  to  have  separated  the  essence  from  the  accidents  of  the 
Pauline  Christianity,  and  disengaged  its  divine  elements  for 
transfusion  into  the  organism  of  our  immediate  life.  Mr. 
Stanley  appears  to  have  more  difficulty  in  unreservedly  ad- 
hering to  the  purely  historical  view,  and  clerically  flutters, 
without  clear  occasion,  on  the  outskirts  of  "  edification  "  ;  — 
the  critic  in  his  notes,  the  preacher  in  his  paraphrase ;  conced- 
ing in  act  more  readily  than  in  name,  and  apologizing  for  find- 
ing human  ingredients  in  the  Apostles  and  their  doctrines,  as 
if  it  were  he,  and  not  God,  that  would  have  them  there.  This 
tendency  to  blur  the  lines  which  he  himself  draws  between 
the  temporary  and  the  permanent  in  the  Scriptures  with 
which  he  deals,  is  the  only  fault  we  can  find  with  Mr.  Stan- 


420  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

ley ;  whose  associate,  clinging  less  to  the  past,  in  effect  pre- 
serves more  for  the  present.  To  learn  the  external  scene  of 
the  Apostle's  career,  we  would  refer  our  readers  to  Messrs. 
Conybeare  and  Howson ;  to  appreciate  his  moral  surround- 
ings, and  the  problems  it  presented,  especially  on  the  ethnic 
side,  they  may  take  Mr.  Stanley  as  their  guide ;  but  for  in- 
sight into  the  Apostle  himself,  and  outlook  on  the  world  as  it 
seemed  to  him,  they  must  resort  to  Mr.  Jowett. 

The  Pauline  Epistles  are  interesting,  apart  from  all  assump- 
tion of  inspired  authority,  because  the  elements  are  seen  fer- 
menting there  of  the  greatest  known  revolution  both  in  the 
history  of  the  world  and  in  the  spiritual  consciousness  of  indi- 
vidual man.  Judaism  was  the  narrowest  (that  is,  the  most 
special)  of  religions ;  Christianity,  the  most  human  and  com- 
prehensive. Within  a  few  years,  the  latter  was  evolved  out  of 
the  former;  taking  all  its  intensity  and  durability,  without 
resort  to  any  of  its  limitations.  This  marvellous  expansion  of 
the  national  into  the  universal  was  not  achieved  without  a  pro- 
cess and  a  conflict.  Divine  though  the  work  was,  it  had  to  be 
wrought  upon  men,  and  through  men,  whose  character,  in- 
terests, convictions,  habits,  and  institutions  furnished  the  data 
conditioning  the  problem,  and  whose  remodelled  affections  and 
will  supplied  the  instruments  for  its  solution.  The  laws  of  hu- 
man nature,  therefore,  and  the  action  of  human  events,  necessa- 
rily enter  into  the  study  of  this  great  revolution  ;  and  it  cannot 
be  detained  out  of  the  hands  of  the  historian  by  any  exclusive 
rights  of  the  divine.  When  we  endeavor  to  trace  the  succes- 
sive steps  of  faith  from  Mount  Zion  to  the  Vatican,  many  parts 
of  the  progress  appear  to  have  left  but  scanty  vestige.  We 
know  the  beginning,  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Hebrew  Messiah  ; 
we  know  the  end,  in  the  recognition  of  a  Saviour  of  the  world. 
We  know  the  intermediate  fact,  —  that  Judaism  did  not  sur- 
render its  own  without  a  struggle,  or  readily  give  away  the 
keys  of  its  enclosure  just  when  it  was  passing  from  a  prison  of 
affliction  into  a  palace  of  "  the  kingdom."  But  within  this 
general  fact  lies  a  world  of  mysterious  detail,  —  nay,  almost 
the  whole  life  of  the  early  Church.  Who  began  the  open 


ST.    PAUL,   AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  421 

breach  between  Messiah  and  the  Law  ?  how,  and  to  what  ex- 
tent, did  the  parties  divide  ?  what  was  their  relative  magnitude 
at  different  times  and  in  different  places  ?  and  by  what  process 
was  the  difference  terminated,  and  the  two  extremes  —  Mar- 
cion  on  the  one  hand  and  the  Ebionites  on  the  other  —  re- 
moved outside  as  heretics  ?  The  Christianity  of  the  third 
century  is  so  little  like  the  doctrine  of  Matthew's  Gospel  as  to 
perplex  our  sense  of  identity.  No  one  can  bring  the  two  into 
direct  comparison,  without  feeling  how  much  must  have  hap- 
pened to  shape  the  earlier  into  the  form  of  the  later.  Could 
we  trace  the  flow  and  estimate  the  sources  of  this  change,  the 
most  wonderful  of  the  world's  experiences  would  be  resolved. 
The  continuity,  however,  of  visible  causation  is  often  broken ; 
there  are  everywhere  many  missing  links  in  the  chain,  and  a 
chasm  extending  through  a  large  part  of  the  second  century. 
But  a  generation  earlier  we  meet  with  materials  of  the  rich- 
est value  in  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul ;  and  by  their  aid  the 
general  direction  may  be  found  by  which  thought  and  events 
must  have  advanced.  Otherwise,  the  change  would  seem  as 
violent  and  inconceivable  as  a  convulsion  that  should  mingle 
the  Jordan  and  the  Tiber. 

No  doubt,  the  germ  of  the  Gospel's  universality  is  to  be 
found  in  the  personal  characteristics  of  its  Author,  —  in  the 
whole  spirit  of  his  life,  and  the  direct  tendency  of  his  teach- 
ings. He  who  found  in  the  love  of  God  and  love  of  man  the 
very  springs  of  eternal  life ;  who  measured  good  and  evil,  not 
by  the  act,  but  by  the  affection  whence  they  come;  who 
placed  his  ideal  for  man  in  likeness  to  the  perfection  of  God, 
—  had  already  proclaimed  a  religion  transcending  all  local 
limits.  Nay,  if  he  opposed  the  "  true  worship  "  to  the  services 
at  Gerizim  and  Jerusalem,  and  could  wish  the  Temple  away, 
that  obstructed  his  direct  dealing  with  the  human  soul  and 
suppressed  the  inner  shrine  "  not  made  with  hands,"  he 
must  even  have  placed  himself  in  an  attitude  of  open  aliena- 
tion towards  the  ritual  of  his  people.  At  the  same  time,  his 
words  seem  to  have  left  not  unfrequently  an  opposite  impres- 
sion. He  comes,  "  not  to  destroy  the  Law  and  the  prophets, 
36 


422  ST.   PAUL   AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

but  to  fulfil "  them ;  "  not  a  jot  or  a  tittle  is  to  fail."  His 
most  spiritual  truths  and  sentiments,  instead  of  being  an- 
nounced as  novelties  grounding  themselves  on  his  personal 
authority,  are  drawn  out  of  the  old  Hebrew  Scriptures ;  and 
even  the  life  beyond  death  he  finds  lurking  in  patriarchal  id- 
ioms and  phrases  heard  at  the  burning  bush.  His  intensest 
polemic  against  the  sacerdotal  party  goes  on  within  the  limits 
of  the  system  which  they  represent  and  yet  corrupt ;  and  his 
bitterest  reproach  against  them  is  that  there  is  no  reverence 
for  it  in  their  hearts,  since  they  hugely  violate  and  trivially 
obey  it.  Far  from  ever  launching  out  against  law  as  law,  or 
setting  up  faith  as  a  rival  principle  excluding  it,  he  extends 
precept  to  the  last  heights  of  religion,  enjoins  the  divinest  af- 
fections, as  if  there  also  obedience  was  possible,  and  duty  and 
volition  had  their  place.  It  was  not  in  a  nature  holy  and 
harmonious  as  his,  —  type  of  heavenly  peace  rather  than  of 
earthly  conflict,  —  that  the  schism  would  be  exhibited  between 
Will  and  Love  ;  where  both  are  at  their  height,  there  is  no 
rent  between  them.  Nor  was  there  need,  in  that  meek,  rev- 
erential soul,  to  break  with  the  past,  in  order  to  find  a  sanc- 
tity for  the  present,  and  leave  an  inspiration  for  the  future. 
Some  things,  once  given  for  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts, 
might  be  dropped,  and  fall  behind  ;  but  God  had  ever  lived, 
and  left  the  trace  of  his  perfectness  upon  the  elder  times  as 
on  the  newest  manifestations  of  the  hour.  There  was  enough 
in  the  Law,  if  only  its  fruitful  seeds  were  warmed  into  life,  to 
furnish  forth  the  Gospel.  And  so  Christ  presents  himself  as 
the  disciple  of  Moses,  and  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  does 
but  open  out  the  tables  of  Sinai.  It  was  not,  therefore,  with- 
out honest  ground  that  his  immediate  disciples  could  defend 
him  from  the  charge  of  being  unfaithful  to  the  religion  of  his 
native  land.  And  yet  the  instinct  of  the  priests  and  rabbis 
told  them  truly  that  he  and  they  could  not  co-exist,  that  his 
doctrine  reduced  their  work  to  naught,  and  that,  whenceso- 
ever  he  might  draw  it,  there  was  no  doubt  whither  he  must 
carry  it.  The  "  witnesses  "  were  not  altogether  "  false  " 
which  they  brought  to  show  his  inner  hostility  to  the  altar 


ST.    PAUL,    AND    HIS    MODEKN    STUDENTS.  423 

ceremonial ;  and  perhaps  his  enemies,  with  apprehension 
sharpened  by  fear,  more  correctly  interpreted  his  tendency  in 
this  direction  than  his  followers,  entangled  in  the  cloud  of  a 
Judaic  love.  It  was  quite  natural  that  the  real  antithesis  be- 
tween the  Law  and  the  Gospel  should  thus  be  first  felt  by  his 
antagonists,  whilst  as  yet  it  slept  undeveloped  in  the  minds  of 
his  followers  and  in  the  habitual  expression  of  his  own 
thought ;  and  that  its  earliest  proclamation  should  be  their 
act,  their  defiance,  the  cross  on  Calvary ! 

This  terrible  challenge,  fiercely  protesting  that  the  Law 
would  hold  no  parley  with  the  Gospel,  the  Apostles,  however, 
refused  to  accept.  They  still  denied  their  Lord's  apostasy 
or  their  own  ;  they  had  always  been,  and  with  his  encourage- 
ment, the  best  of  Jews :  nor  did  they  contemplate,  so  far,  any 
change.  The  crucifixion  was  a  Jewish  mistake,  meant  for 
the  nation's  enemy,  but  alighting  on  its  representative ;  a 
mistake,  however,  which  God  had  counteracted  by  a  glorious 
rescue,  in  the  resurrection  of  the  crucified.  The  mischief 
being  thus  undone,  the  day  of  Hebrew  opportunity  was  re- 
sumed ;  the  ministry  of  Jesus  was  not  closed ;  he  yet  lived 
and  preached  to  them  as  before  ;  —  no  longer,  indeed,  in  per- 
son till  their  better  mind  should  re-assert  itself,  but  by  "faith- 
ful witnesses  "  ;  —  no  longer  too  in  tentative  disguise,  but  now 
identified  as  Messiah  by  his  exaltation  above  this  world. 
Whatever  conflicts  of  mind  the  disciples  suffered  in  the  mys- 
terious period  following  the  crucifixion,  the  operation  of  the 
resurrection  and  the  Spirit  was  at  first  simply  to  reinstate 
them  in  their  prior  faith,  —  that  the  kingdom  would  soon  be 
restored  to  Israel,  and  be  brought  in  by  no  other  than  their 
Master,  already  waiting  for  the  crisis  in  a  higher  world  till 
God's  hour  should  come.  There  is  no  evidence  to  show  that, 
on  the  transference  of  their  Lord's  life  from  earth  to  heaven, 
they  were  carried  into  any  greater  comprehensiveness  or 
spirituality  of  faith :  their  convictions  were  more  intense,  but 
held  on  in  the  same  direction,  being  all  included  in  one  great 
theme,  —  the  speedy  coming  of  Messiah's  kingdom  and  the 
end  of  the  world.  Nay,  of  so  little  consequence,  in  compar- 


424  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

ison  with  this  general  picture  of  expectation,  was  even  the 
appearance  in  it  of  the  person  of  Jesus  as  its  central  figure, 
that  Apollos,  more  than  twenty  years  afterwards,  was  making 
and  baptizing  converts,  without  having  ever  heard  of  any  later 
prophet  than  John  the  Baptist ;  and  these  people  are  already 
recognized  as  "  disciples,"  and  then  informed,  as  needful 
complement  to  their  faith,  that,  besides  the  crisis  being  near, 
the  person  is  appointed.*  Here  had  evidently  been,  for  some 
quarter  of  a  century,  two  independent  streams  of  Messianic 
faith,  one  from  a  rather  earlier  source  than  the  other,  but 
pursuing  their  own  separate  way,  till  thus  partially  confluent 
at  Ephesus.  And  what  is  the  relation  between  them  ?  One 
of  them  baptizes  into  an  impersonal  and  anonymous  hope, 
the  other  into  the  same  hope  with  the  name  attached.  And 
when  these  two  states  of  mind  are  set  side  by  side,  they  are 
regarded  as  the  same  in  their  essence,  and  differing  only  in 
completeness.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  their  mutual  feeling 
to  hinder  their  instant  coalescence.  This  fact  defines  in  the 
clearest  way  the  position  of  the  early  Church ;  the  ordinary 
Jew  believed  that  Messiah  would  some  time  come,  and  bring 
in  "  the  last  days  " ;  Apollos,  that  he  would  come  erelong ; 
the  Christians,  that  already  the  person  Avas  indicated,  and 
would  prove  to  be  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  All  three  co-existed 
within  the  Hebrew  pale,  and  the  two  last  fall  under  the  com- 
mon category  of  "  disciples." 

It  was  impossible,  however,  that  the  contemplation  of  a 
Messiah  risen  and  reserved  in  heaven  should  affect  all  the 
believers  in  a  precisely  similar  manner.  His  personal  attend- 
ants it  would  take  up  just  where  the  crucifixion  had  let  them 
down ;  would  give  new  force  to  their  previous  impressions, 
new  sacredness  to  their  recollections,  new  significance  to  his 
words  and  example,  new  reluctance  to  venture  where  he  had 
not  led.  The  whole  effect  would  be  conservative,  and  tend 
to  fix  them,  with  an  inspired  rigor,  within  the  limits  of  the 
Master's  lot  and  life.  Quite  otherwise  was  it  with  the  new 

*  Acts  xviii.  24;  xix.  7. 


ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS   MODERN    STUDENTS.  425 

disciples,  who  had  no  such  restraining  memories  of  the  human 
Teacher.  They  began  with  Christ  above,  and  were  tied 
down  by  no  concrete  biographical  images,  no  scruples  of 
tender  retrospect.  They  were  free  to  ask  themselves,  "What 
meant  this  surprising  way  of  revealing  Messiah  '  in  heavenly 
places,'  and  letting  his  disguise  first  fall  off  in  his  escape  from 
local  relations  ?  The  scene  from  which  he  looked  down,  — 
was  it  the  mere  upper  chamber  of  Judaea,  or  did  it  overarch 
the  human  world  ?  Who  could  claim  him,  now  that  he  was 
there?  Was  it  for  him  to  examine  pedigrees  to  test  'the 
children  of  the  kingdom';  or  would  he,  as  Son  of  David, 
even  come  emblazoned  with  his  own  ?  "  The  mere  conception 
of  an  ascended  and  immortal  being,  assessor  to  the  Lord  of 
all,  seemed  to  dwarf  and  shame  all  provincial  restrictions,  and 
sanction  the  distaste  for  binding  forms  and  ceremonial  exclu- 
siveness.  The  withdrawal  of  Christ  to  a  holier  sphere  ac- 
corded well  with  all  that  was  most  spiritual  in  his  teachings 
and  in  himself;  and  could  not  fail  to  reflect  a  strong  light 
back  on  this  aspect  of  his  life,  and  give  a  more  significant 
emphasis  to  the  tradition  of  his  deepest  words.  In  the  mind 
of  many  a  disciple  this  tendency  would  be  favored  by  a  weari- 
ness towards  the  outer  worship  of  the  temple,  and  a  secret 
aspiration  after  purer  and  more  intimate  communion  with 
God.  Especially  was  the  foreign  Jew  obliged  to  confess 
such  a  feeling  to  himself.  The  very  speaking  of  Greek 
spoiled  him  for  thinking  as  a  Hebrew ;  for  language  is  the 
channel  of  the  soul,  and  according  as  the  organism  is  open, 
the  sap  will  flow.  Accustomed  to  the  simple  piety  of  the 
Proseucha,  where  God  was  sought  without  priest  or  sacrifice, 
and  adequately  found  in  poetry,  and  prophecy,  and  prayer,  the 
Hellenist  acquired  a  tone  of  sentiment  on  which  the  material 
pomps  and  puerilities  of  Mount  Moriah  painfully  jarred.  Nor 
could  he  enclose  himself  contentedly,  like  the  Palestine  Jew, 
within  the  sacred  boundary  that  admitted  the  most  worthless 
son  of  Abraham,  and  shut  the  noblest  Gentile  out.  Living 
in  heathen  cities,  dealing  with  heathen  men,  touched  at  times 
with  the  sorrow  or  the  goodness  of  heathen  neighbors,  his 
36* 


42G  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

moral  feeling  fell  into  contradiction  with  his  inherited  exclu- 
siveness,  and  inwardly  demanded  some  other  providential 
classification  of  mankind.  Accordingly,  it  was  the  Hellenist 
Stephen  who  first  saw,  in  the  heavenly  Christ,  a  principle  of 
universal  religion  and  a  proclamation  of  spiritual  worship. 
When  accused  of  defaming  Moses  and  the  Law  and  the  holy 
place,  and  setting  up  Jesus  to  supersede  them,  he  boldly  re- 
flects on  the  stone  Temple,  rooted  to  one  spot,  as  at  variance 
with  His  nature  who  said,  "  Heaven  is  my  throne,  and  earth 
my  footstool,"  and  points  to  the  earlier  tabernacle,  movable 
from  place  to  place,  following  the  steps  of  wandering  human- 
ity, as  truer  emblem  of  a  faith  that  takes  every  winding  of 
history,  and  a  God  who  goes  where  we  go,  and  stays  where 
we  stay.*  This  noble  doctrine  doubtless  expressed  a  feeling 
common  among  the  foreign  Jews  of  liberal  culture  and  fervid 
piety ;  and  when  consecrated  by  Stephen's  martyrdom,  it 
would  assume  a  distinctness  unknown  before,  and  become  the 
admitted  type  of  belief  among  the  Christian  Hellenists.  That 
it  was  confined  to  them  is  evident  from  the  partial  effect  of 
the  persecution  in  which  Stephen  fell.  His  friends,  —  per- 
haps we  may  say  his  party,  —  hunted  from  house  to  house, 
fled  from  Jerusalem ;  but  the  Jewish  Apostles  remained  where 
they  were,  t  apparently  unmenaced  and  undisturbed.  The 
hostility  of  the  city  drew  therefore  a  distinction  between  such 
Hebrew  Christians  as  the  twelve,  and  the  freer  "  Grecians  " 
who  proclaimed  a  Spirit  above  the  Temple  and  the  Law. 
The  former,  constituting  an  inner  sect  of  Judaism,  might  hold 
their  ground  unmolested  ;  the  latter  were  treated  as  apostates, 
and  "  scattered  abroad."  The  essential,  but  hitherto  dormant, 
antithesis  between  the  Gospel  and  the  Law,  had  thus  burst 
into  expression,  and  embodied  itself  in  two  sections  of  the 
Church  that  grew  ever  more  distinct ;  the  Hebrew  party  con- 
centrated in  Jerusalem,  and  remaining  intensely  national ;  the 
Hellenistic,  spreading  itself  on  the  outskirts  of  Palestine, 
and  erelong  fixing  its  head-quarters  at  Antioch.  Within 

*  Acts  vii.  44  -  49.  f  Acts  viii.  1. 


ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  427 

this  freer  circle,  first  as  persecutor,  soon  as  disciple,  appears 
Saul  of  Tarsus.  So  congenial  are  its  tendencies  and  aspira- 
tions with  his  nature  and  his  antecedent  position,  that  his 
hostile  attitude  towards  it  might  well  strike  him,  on  looking 
back,  as  a  monstrous  self-contradiction.  A  foreigner  to  Pal- 
estine, a  "citizen  of  no  mean  city,"  familiar  with  a  trade  that 
bought  from  the  shepherds  of  Mount  Taurus,  and  sold  to  the 
Greek  skippers  of  the  Levant,  he  knew  the  human  side  of 
the  Gentile  world  too  well  to  rest  in  a  narrow  Judaism.  We 
cannot  imagine  his  fervid,  free-moving  mind,  content  to  live 
within  the  enclosure  of  Rabbinical  niceties,  or  able  to  find,  in 
the  materialism  of  the  Temple  rites,  his  ideal  of  true  worship. 
With  sympathies  essentially  cosmopolitan,  he  could  scarcely 
fail  to  be  disappointed,  not  to  say  repelled,  by  Jerusalem, — 
so  different  from  the  dream  of  his  young  romance.  Some 
higher,  fresher  communion  between  earth  and  heaven,  some 
wider  monarchy  for  God  than  over  a  mere  clan,  would  be  to 
him  natural  objects  of  aspiration.  Hence  his  first  persecuting 
attitude  towards  the  Christian  Hellenists  was  permanently 
untenable ;  and  as  he  went  amongst  them,  words  were  sure 
to  fall  upon  his  ear,  and  holy  looks  to  meet  his  eye,  that 
would  smite  him  with  a  kindred  affection.  Whether  the 
death  of  Stephen  left  on  his  mind  images  which  he  could  not 
banish,  and  commenced  a  reaction  which  no  plunge  into 
fresh  violences  could  arrest,  it  is  vain  to  conjecture.  That  it 
should  be  so,  would  be  only  human  ;  for  in  the  life  of  passion, 
triumph  and  humiliation  are  near  neighbors,  and  often  the 
last  note  in  the  song  of  exultation  dies  down  into  the  plaint 
of  compunction.  Certain  it  is,  that  shortly  afterwards  it 
"pleased  God  to  reveal  his  Son  in  him";  that,  with  the 
suddenness  characteristic  of  impassioned  natures,  he  came  to 
himself,  and  found  his  proper  work,  "  to  which  he  had  been 
set  apart  from  his  mother's  womb  " ;  and  that  his  new  convic- 
tions were  of  the  very  same  type  and  tendency  with  Stephen's, 
and  strongly  discriminated  from  the  Messianic  doctrine  of  the 
twelve  at  Jerusalem.  The  incipient  breach  between  Law  and 
Gospel,  latent  in  the  Master,  denied  by  the  twelve,  bursting 


428  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS   MODERN    STCDENTS. 

forth  among  the  Hellenists,  finally  realized  and  defined  itself 
in  Paul ;  whose  intense  impulses  were  too  great  for  the  custo- 
dy of  his  will ;  whose  soul  had  wings  to  fly,  but  not  feet  to 
plod ;  who  felt  himself  the  theatre  of  living  powers  not  his 
own,  and  could  find  no  peace  till,  by  communion  with  the 
heavenly  Son  of  God,  he  discovered  a  providential  love  uni- 
versal as  human  life,  and  a  way  of  reconciliation  quick  and 
open  as  human  trust  and  reverence.  It  is  easier  to  speak  of 
the  effects  than  of  the  nature  of  his  conversion.  His  writ- 
ings exhibit  its  results,  but  only  vaguely  allude  to  its  occur- 
rence, and  never  in  terms  at  all  resembling  the  recitals  in 
the  Book  of  Acts,  or  abating  their  discrepancies.  Of  these 
narratives  (Acts  ix.  1-9,  xxii.  6—12,  xxvi.  12-18)  Mr. 
Jowett  remarks,  "  There  is  no  use  in  attempting  any  forced 
reconcilement."  (I.  229.)  On  the  one  hand,  "There  is  no 
fact  in  history  more  certain  or  undisputed  than  that,  in  some 
way  or  other,  by  an  inward  vision  or  revelation  of  the  Lord, 
or  by  an  outward  miraculous  appearance  as  he  was  going  to 
Damascus,  the  Apostle  was  suddenly  converted  from  being  a 
persecutor  to  become  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel."  (I.  227.) 
On  the  other,  "  If  we  submit  the  narrative  of  the  Acts  to  the 
ordinary  rules  of  evidence,  we  shall  scarcely  find  ourselves 
able  to  determine  whether  any  outward  fact  was  intended  by 
it  or  not."  This,  however,  is  of  the  less  moment,  because  it  is 
evident  from  the  language  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
(Gal.  i.  15,  16)  that, — 

"  Whether  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  was  an  outward  or 
an  inward  fact,  it  was  not  principally  the  outward  appearance 
in  the  heavens,  but  the  inward  effect,  that  the  Apostle  would 
have  regarded.  Compare  Eph.  iii.  3  :  '  How  that  by  revela- 
tion he  made  known  unto  me  the  mystery  (as  I  wrote  afore 
in  few  words).' 

"It  has  been  often  remarked,  that  miracles  are  not  ap- 
pealed to  singly  in  Scripture  as  evidences  of  religion,  in  the 
same  way  that  they  have  been  used  by  modern  writers.  Es- 
pecially does  this  remark  apply  to  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul. 
Not  a  hint  is  found  in  his  writings,  that  he  regarded  '  the 


ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  429 

heavenly  vision'   as  an  objective  evidence  of  Christianity. 
The  evidence  to  him  was  the  sudden  change  of  heart ;  what 
he  terms,  in  the  case  of  his  converts,  the  reception  of  the 
Spirit ;  what  he  had  known,  and  what  he  felt ;  the  fact  that 
one  instant  he  was  a  persecutor,  and  the  second  a  preacher  of 
the  Gospel.     The  last  inquiry  that  he  would  have  thought  of 
making,  would  be  that  of  modern  theologians :  <  How,  with- 
out some  outward  sign,  he  could  be  assured  of  the  reality  of 
what  he  had  seen  and  heard.'     No  outward  sign  could,  as 
such,  have  convinced  the  mind  of  a  man  who  fell  to  the 
ground  amazed,  unless  it  were  certain  that  his  companions 
had  seen  the  light  and  heard  the  voice.     Nor  unless  they  had 
distinctly  been  partakers  of  the  supernatural  vision  could  he 
ever  have  been  satisfied  that  what  they  saw  was  anything  but 
a  meteor,  or  lightning,  or  that  the  voice  they  heard  was  more 
than   the  sound  of  thunder.     No  evidence  of  theirs  would 
have  been  an  answer  to  the  language  of  some  of  the  ration- 
alist divines :  *  St.  Paul  was  overtaken  by  a  storm  of  thunder 
and  lightning  in  the  neighborhood  of  Damascus.'     Such  diffi- 
culties are  insuperable  ;  at  best  we  can  only  raise  probabili- 
ties in  answer   to  them,  based  on   the  general  tone  of  the 
narrative  in  Acts  ix.     But  we  may  remember  that  the  belief 
in  some  outward  fact  was  not  the  essential  point  in  St.  Paul's 
faith,  and  therefore  we  need  not  make  it  the  essential  point 
in  our  own. 

"  It  is  not  upon  the  testimony  of  any  single  person,  even 
were  it  far  more  distinct  than  in  the  present  instance,  we  can 
venture  to  peril  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion.  Weak 
defences  of  comparatively  unimportant  points,  undermine 
more  than  they  support.  He  who  has  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
and  his  Apostles,  has  the  witness  in  himself;  he  who  leads 
the  life  of  Paul,  has  already  set  his  seal  that  his  words  are 
true.  Were  the  other  view  supported  by  the  most  irrefraga- 
ble historical  evidence,  —  had  the  sign  in  the  clouds  been 
beheld  by  whole  multitudes  of  Jews  and  Gentiles,  believers 
and  unbelivers,  —  it  is  to  the  internal  aspect  of  the  event  we 


430  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

should  be  more  inclined  to  turn,  both  as  the  more  religious 
one,  and  the  one  which  more  closely  links  the  Apostle  with 
ourselves."  —  Vol.  L  p.  230. 

With  the  essentially  inward  character  of  this  crisis,  the 
substance  of  the  revelation  involved  in  it  strikingly  corre- 
sponds. 

"  It  was  spiritual  rather  than  historical ;  a  revelation  of 
Christ  in  him,  not  external  information  brought  to  him.  It 
was  the  ever-growing  sense  of  union  with  Christ,  imparted, 
not  in  one  revelation,  but  many ;  not  only  by  special  reve- 
lation, but  as  the  inward  experience  of  a  long  life,  from  which 
his  union  in  Christ  with  all  mankind,  and  his  mission  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Gentiles,  were  from  the  beginning 
inseparable  ;  as  a  part  of  which  the  image  of  the  meekness 
and  gentleness  of  Christ  formed  itself  in  him,  not  without  the 
remembrance  that  he  had  '  seen '  Him  who  was  now  passed 
into  the  heavens."  —  Jowett,  Vol.  I.  p.  216. 

Since  the  Apostle  "  nowhere  speaks  of  any  special  truths 
or  doctrines  as  imparted  to  himself"  (I.  72)  ;  since  he  never 
dwells  on  the  life  of  Christ,  the  miracles,  the  parables,  so  that 
it  is  even  doubtful  what  he  knew  of  them ;  and  since  his 
whole  appeal  is  either,  (1.)  to  the  witness  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  or  (2.)  to  historical  testimony,  or  (3.)  to  the  as- 
surance of  the  living  Spirit,  —  it  is  evident  that  his  conver- 
sion chiefly  gave  him  that  inward  image  of  Christ  crucified 
and  risen,  which  attended  him  through  all  his  years,  and  so 
lived  in  him  as  to  take  the  place  of  his  personality,  and 
coalesce  with  his  spiritual  affections,  and  do  the  work  of  his 
will. 

Of  the  Apostle's  mode  of  thought  when  fresh  from  his  con- 
version no  memorial  exists ;  his  earliest  extant  writing  being 
of  a  date  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  later,  and  the  report  in  the 
Book  of  Acts  not  being  altogether  reliable  —  as  Mr.  Jowett 
has  shown  * —  for  historical  accuracy.  But  we  learn  from 


*  See  especially  the  Notes  on  Paley's  Horse  Paulinas,  Vol.  I.  pp.  349,  252. 
We  subjoin  in  this  connection  a  just  and  striking  remark  of  Mr.  Jowett's.    In 


ST.    PAUL   AND   HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  431 

his  own  remarkable  statement  to  the  Galatians,  that  he  kept 
aloof  from  the  churches  in  Judaea,  and  was  unknown  to 
them  by  face ;  that  it  was  three  years  before  he  entered  Je- 
rusalem, or  saw  an  Apostle ;  that  he  then  made  acquaintance 
with  Peter,  and  met  James,  but  without  its  affecting  his  inde- 
pendent course,  which  ran  through  eleven  years  more  ere  it 
brought  him  to  Jerusalem  again ;  that  his  errand,  on  this  sec- 
ond visit,  was  to  take  security  against  being  thwarted  by 
Jewish  jealousies  sanctioned  at  head-quarters ;  that  from 
James,  Cephas,  and  John  —  the  "  seeming  pillars  "  of  the 
Church  —  he  learnt  nothing  that  he  cared  to  hear  ;  that  they, 
on  the  other  hand,  could  not  gainsay  the  independent  rights 
of  so  fruitful  an  apostleship,  and  agreed  with  him  not  to  cross 
his  path,  if  he  would  leave  them  theirs.  The  emphasis  with 
which,  in  this  animated  passage,  St.  Paul  dwells  on  the  sepa- 
rate sources  of  his  own  faith,  and  disowns  any  obligation  to 
the  prior  Apostles,  renders  it  certain  that  the  biography,  the 
discourses,  the  human  personality  of  Jesus,  were  indifferent  to 
him  ;  and  that  with  only  the  cross  and  the  resurrection  (con- 
tained as  data  in  the  vision  of  conversion)  he  could  construct 
his  scheme.  The  unmistakable  sarcasm  of  the  expressions, 
01  SoKovjrer,  —  SoKovvrt s  tivai  TI  —  ot  doKavvrts  oruAot  tlvm,  — 
betrays  a  state  of  mind,  in  regard  to  the  twelve,  out  of  all 
sympathy  with  the  grounds  of  their  authority.  And  the  ne- 
cessity, in  order  to  agreement,  of  marking  out  for  each,  not  a 
separate  geographical  beat,  but  a  distinct  religious  and  eth- 
nologic ground,  shows  that,  with  external  mutual  toleration, 
there  is  yet  wanting  the  inner  unity  of  an  identic  faith.  Only 
in  the  absence  of  a  common  Gospel  would  each  party  have  to 
« 

inquiries  of  this  sort,  it  is  often  supposed  that,  if  the  evidence  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  a  single  book  of  Scripture  be  weakened,  or  the  credit  of  a  single 
chapter  shaken,  a  deep  and  irreparable  injury  is  inflicted  on  Christian  truth, 
and  may  afford  a  rest  to  the  mind  to  consider  that,  if  but  one  discourse  of 
Christ,  one  Epistle  of  Paul,  had  come  down  to  us,  still  more  than  half  would 
have  been  preserved.  Coleridge  has  remarked,  that  out  of  a  single  play  of 
Shakespeare  the  whole  of  English  literature  might  be  restored.  Much  more 
true  is  it  that  in  short  portions  or  single  verses  of  Scripture  the  whole  spirit 
of  Christianity  is  contained.  VoL  I.  p.  352. 


432  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

take  its  own,  and  spare  the  other  Indeed,  the  difference  was 
so  fundamental  as  to  involve  everything  that  St.  Paul  then, 
and  Christians  now,  would  deem  characteristic  of  their  re- 
ligion. 

The  question  was  this,  —  "  How  might  a  born  Gentile  be- 
come a  Christian  ?  "  —  "  By  becoming  a  Jew  first,  and  then 
accepting  Jesus  as  appointed  to  be  the  Jews'  Messiah,"  was 
the  answer  at  Jerusalem.  "  By  believing  in  Jesus  straight- 
way," was  the  reply  of  Paul.  With  irresistible  force  he 
contended  that,  according  to  his  opponents'  view,  the  Gospel 
opened  no  door  at  all,  and  was  simply  nugatory.  For  it  had 
always  been  possible  for  a  Gentile  to  become  a  Jew ;  and  if, 
without  this  step,  faith  in  Christ  was  unavailing,  the  real  effi- 
cacy must  lie  in  what  the  Jew  brought  to  Christ,  not  in  what 
he  received  from  him ;  so  that  it  was  hard  to  say  what  good 
there  could  be  in  passing  on  from  Moses  at  all,  or  what  essen- 
tial difference  between  the  unconverted  and  the  converted 
Hebrew.  And,  in  truth,  they  were  not  strongly  contrasted  in 
Jerusalem ;  and  in  habit,  thought,  and  feeling,  the  twelve 
were  probably  much  nearer  to  Gamaliel  than  to  Paul.  The 
altercation  between  Peter  and  Paul  at  Antioch  is  full  of  in- 
struction on  this  point ;  proving,  as  it  does,  that  the  intensest 
form  of  ritual  exclusiveness  —  the  refusal  to  partake  at  table 
with  the  uncircumcised  —  was  retained  in  the  parent  church, 
and  enforced  with  jealous  vigilance.  In  the  Syrian  capital 
the  Gentile  disciples  were  numerous,  the  Pauline  comprehen- 
siveness prevailed,  and  the  intercourses  of  life  were  unhin- 
dered by  ceremonial  scruples.  Peter,  thrown  amongst  them 
on  a  visit,  yields  to  the  local  impression,  and,  as  long  as  he  can 
do  so  unobserved,  falls  in  with  their  free  ways ;  feeling  all  the 
while,  no  doubt,  like  the  Quaker  from  home  tempted  into  a 
ball-dress  or  regimentals.  Soon,  however,  the  strict  brethren 
at  Jerusalem  send  to  look  after  him  or  the  Antiochians,  and 
instantly  his  liberality  is  gone ;  he  is  the  prim  Jew  again,  and 
the  Gentile  dishes  are  all  unclean.  And  who  then  are  these 
new  witnesses,  that  he  should  fear  their  report  ?  They  are 
deputies  from  James,  "  the  brother  of  the  Lord,"  who,  on 


ST.    PAUL    AND    JUS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  433 

account  of  this  affinity,*  was  the  recognized  head  of  the  Ju- 
daean  Christians  ;  and  of  whose  ascetic  abstinences,  and  con- 
stant devotions  on  the  temple  pavement,  till  "  his  knees  were 
become  like  the  knees  of  a  camel,"  Hegesippus  preserved  the 
tradition.f  It  was  clear,  therefore,  that  Peter's  association 
with  the  Gentile  Christians  was  exceptional,  —  a  violation  of 
his  professed  rule,  and  of  the  allowed  usage  of  the  Apostolic 
Church.  To  own  brotherhood  with  the  uncircumcised  believ- 
er, was  a  forfeiture  of  character,  probably  an  outrage  on  his 
own  conscience,  to  the  Christian  Apostle  !  This  was  the  result, 
among  his  first  disciples,  of  nearly  twenty  years'  belief  of 
Christ  in  heaven.  There  could  be  no  real  sympathy  between 
such  an  evangile  and  Paul's.  It  let  him  make  converts,  but 
would  not  acknowledge  them  when  made.  It  could  not  resist 
the  fact  of  his  success,  but  treated  his  "  children  in  the  faith  " 
as  in  a  doubtful  case,  left  to  Heaven's  "  uncovenanted  mer- 
cies," and  needing  to  be  put  in  a  securer  state,  as  soon  as  his 
back  was  turned,  and  teachers  could  be  sent  to  complete  the 
the  task.  Hence  the  opposition  that  tracked  the  steps,  and  so 
much  marred  the  work  of  the  Apostle,  wherever  he  went; 
and  in  repelling  which  he  wrote  his  chief  Epistles,  and  ma- 
tured the  form  of  his  great  theology.  Mr.  Jowett,  whilst 
allowing  that  this  opposition  was  systematic  and  persistent, 
and  in  some  degree  connived  at  by  the  twelve,  is  yet  anxious 
to  lay  it  mainly  to  the  charge  of  their  followers,  and  defines 
the  relation  of  the  two  sections  thus  :  "  Separation,  not  op- 
position ;  antagonism  of  the  followers  rather  than  of  the  lead- 
ers ;  personal  antipathy  of  the  Judaizers  to  St.  Paul,  rather 
than  of  St.  Paul  to  the  twelve."  (I.  32 G.)  These  are  fine  dis- 
tinctions, and  for  this  very  reason  likely,  we  fear,  in  the  rough 
movement  of  human  passions,  to  be  more  ideal  than  real. 
True,  the  feeling  of  a  leader  is  ever  apt  to  run  into  exaggera- 
tion among  the  followers  ;  nor  probably  was  Apostolic  control 


*  Was  it  in  reference  to  this  mere  family-title  to  a  spiritual  authority  that 
Paul  says  of  the  Jerusalem  Apostles,  "  Whatever  they  were,  it  maketh  no 
matter  to  me ;  God  accepteth  no  man's  person  "  'I  (Gal.  iii.  6.) 

t  Ap.  Euseb.  Hist.  Eccles.  II.  28. 

37 


434  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

over  the  mass  of  believers  so  complete  as  to  exclude  this 
danger.  But  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  is  written  by  one 
leader,  and  speaks  of  the  others  ;  and  the  impression  it  con- 
veys is  surely  one  of  very  decided  antagonism,  and  that,  too, 
not  accidental,  but  depending  on  permanent  differences  of 
principle,  which  discussion  did  not  smooth  away,  and  which 
penetrated  into  the  very  organism  of  daily  life.  In  the  alter- 
cation with  Peter,  what  was  the  point  of  Paul's  rebuke? 
Did  he  simply  censure  his  moral  weakness  and  inconsistency  ? 
Not  so,  or  he  would  have  exhorted  him  to  take  whichever 
course  he  approved,  and  stick  to  it.  Did  he  find  fault  with 
his  exceptional  act,  of  eating  with  the  Gentile  Christians  ? 
Not  so,  for  he  did  the  same  himself.  The  thing  he  blamed 
was  nothing  less  than  the  rule  and  usage  by  which  Peter 
habitually  lived,  and  which,  it  is  declared,  virtually  made 
Christ  of  none  effect.  Here  was  a  collision  of  irreconcila- 
ble principles,  and  every  subsequent  occasion  of  personal  con- 
tact, under  like  conditions,  would  be  as  liable  to  produce  it  as 
the  first.  Nor  have  we,  in  fact,  any  reason  to  suppose  a  closer 
approximation  at  a  later  part  of  the  Apostolic  age.  That 
Paul  looked  with  any  particular  respect  on  the  other  Apostles, 
is  surely  not  proved,  as  Mr.  Jowett  imagines,  by  his  appeal 
(1  Cor.  xv.  5)  to  their  testimony  respecting  the  fact  of  their 
Lord's  resurrection,  or  by  his  claiming  (1  Cor.  ix.  5)  to  stand 
on  a  like  footing  of  privilege  with  them.*  To  produce  the 
spectators  of  an  event  as  its  proper  witnesses,  is  no  expression 
of  feeling  towards  them  at  all ;  and  to  say,  "  Are  the  other 
Apostles  to  have  the  right  of  taking  their  wives  with  them  at 
the  cost  of  the  Church,  and  may  not  I  take  or  decline  my 
mere  personal  maintenance  as  I  think  proper  ?  "  institutes  a 


*  In  proof  of  an  essential  unity  of  teaching,  Mr.  Jowett  quotes  Paul  as 
declaring  that  what  they  preached  against  him  was  "  not  another  "  gospel, 
"  for  there  was  not,  could  not,  be  another."  (I.  340.)  But  far  from  bear- 
ing this  conciliatory  turn,  which  is  out  of  character  with  the  whole  con- 
text, Gal.  i.  6  affirms  that  what  his  opponents  have  been  preaching  is  (1.) 
another  gospel;  and  yet  (2.)  not  another  gospel,  (not  so  good  even  as  that,) 
but  mere  disturbance  and  perversion,  the  negation  of  a  gospel. 


ST.  PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  435 

comparison  in  which  it  is  difficult  to  discover  any  strong  sen- 
timent of  "respect."  Nor  do  the  doctrinal  agreements,  of 
which,  as  well  as  of  the  personal  relations  of  fellowship,  our 
author  makes  the  most,  amount  to  any  substantial  concur- 
rence, when  we  penetrate  to  the  essence  from  the  form.  On 
both  sides,  says  Mr.  Jowett,  the  disciples  were  baptized  into 
the  same  name.  (I.  340.)  Yes  ;  but  how  different  the  object 
named  as  present  to  their  thought ;  hi  the  one  case,  the  hu- 
man life  in  its  detail,  with  the  resurrection  as  its  crown ;  in 
the  other,  the  cross  of  Christ  that  stands  between  them,  and 
his  life  in  heaven  that  passes  beyond  them !  Both  sections, 
it  is  again  said,  find  their  ground  in  the  Old  Testament.  (I. 
341.)  True  :  but  the  one  on  Moses,  the  tables,  and  the  holy 
place ;  the  other,  on  Adam's  nature,  and  the  patriarchs'  free- 
dom, and  the  prophets'  insight ;  the  one,  moreover,  using  the 
ground  to  intrench  the  Law  for  ever ;  the  other,  to  drive 
the  ploughshare  over  its  ruins,  and  make  it  a  fruitful  field. 
Once  more,  it  is  said  that  on  both  sides  there  was  a  looking 
for  "  the  day  of  the  Lord,"  an  expectation  of  Christ's  re- 
turn to  end  the  world  within  that  generation.  (I.  341.) 
Assuredly,  but  with  such  differences  in  the  vision,  that,  in  the 
apocalyptic  picture  of  the  one,  Paul  is  not  among  the  Apostles, 
or  his  followers  among  the  white-robed  and  crowned  (Rev. 
xxi.  14,  and  ii.  2,  14,  20)  ;  while  in  that  of  the  other,  the 
advent  will  but  perfect  and  perpetuate  a  union  with  Christ, 
already  present  to  their  consciousness,  and  open  to  all  who 
live  with  him  in  the  Spirit  In  short,  twenty  years  after  the 
death  of  Christ,  the  two  elements  that  were  harmonized  in 
him,  but  are  ever  apt  to  part  in  our  imperfect  minds,  the  eth- 
ical and  the  mystical,  the  historical  and  spiritual,  ascetic  con- 
centration and  outspreading  trust,  fell  into  determinate  antith- 
esis, realizing  their  conflict  hi  the  immediate  question  of  Jew 
and  Gentile,  and  finding  their  respective  representatives  in 
the  twelve  and  St.  Paul. 

Whether,  besides  and  beyond  this  general  development  of 
the  Christian  system,  there  was  also  a  special  development  of 
doctrine  into  higher  degrees  of  spirituality  within  the  mind  of 


436  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

St.  Paul  himself,  is  a  question  of  less  interest  and  more  diffi- 
culty. Both  Mr.  Stanley  and  Mr.  Jowett  find  traces  of  such 
a  change  in  the  modified  sentiment  of  his  later  writings,  and 
even  make  the  Apostle  himself  depose  to  his  own  enlarge- 
ment of  view.  We  must  confess  that  this  speculation,  though 
excluded  by  no  antecedent  improbability,  appears  to  us  less 
well  supported  than  anything  in  these  volumes.  It  is  ingeni- 
ously presented  and  argued  by  Mr.  Jowett  in  his  introduc- 
tion to  the  Thessalonian  Epistles  ;  and  by  means  of  it  he  ex- 
plains the  marked  absence  from  these  letters  of  St.  Paul's 
usual  topics  and  manner,  and  gets  rid  of  the  objection  urged 
on  this  ground  to  their  authenticity.  Applied  at  the  other 
end  of  the  Apostle's  career,  the  hypothesis  accounts  for  the 
prominence,  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians,  Philippians, 
and  Colossians,  of  certain  conceptions,  doubtfully  traceable 
elsewhere,  of  the  place  of  Christ  in  the  hierarchy  of  the 
universe,  and  of  his  union  with  his  disciples  as  his  "  body." 
The  pastorals  may  be  left  out  of  consideration,  as  their  mixed 
phenomena  cannot  be  much  used  in  the  service  of  this  theory. 
The  broad  facts  are  undoubted,  —  that  the  four  great  central 
Epistles  (Galatians,  Corinthians,  Romans)  must  be  taken  as 
our  foci  of  authority  for  the  characteristics  of  St.  Paul ;  that, 
in  the  earlier  Thessalonians,  these  characteristics  are  over, 
shadowed  by  the  more  Judaic  doctrine  of  the  "  day  of  the 
Lord,"  and  in  the  later  Ephesians,  &c.,  by  the  more  Gnostic 
conception  of  a  spiritual  hierarchy  and  pleroma.  But  these 
facts  are  quite  overworked  when  set  to  prove  our  author's 
thesis.  In  order  to  establish  a  process  of  personal  develop- 
ment, they  ought  to  exhibit  certain  natural  links  of  psycho- 
logical and  moral  succession,  and  not  mere  abrupt  and  unre- 
lated contrasts  of  subject.  To  look  for  such  organic  indica- 
tions in  the  sparse  productions  of  the  Apostle's  pen,  is  to  ask 
too  much  from  a  few  incidental  letters,  bearing  to  his  whole 
life  the  proportion  of  a  dozen  pages  of  random  excerpts  to  a 
cyclopaedia.  If  only  the  matters  treated  be  different,  the 
whole  group  of  writings  may  very  well  express,  in  its  several 
parts  and  aspects,  one  simultaneous  state  of  mind.  If  the 


ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  437 

types  of  thought  be  such  as  could  scarcely  co-exist,  the  cause 
may  be  sought  as  reasonably  in  a  plurality  of  authors  as  in  a 
succession  of  beliefs  in  the  same  author ;  and  only  a  most 
delicate  combination  of  symptoms  can  rescue  the  problem 
from  this  indeterminate  state  of  double  solution.  Nor  ought 
we  to  forget,  in  weighing  the  probabilities,  that  the  whole  set 
of  Epistles  comprising  the  phenomena  of  difference  were 
written  within  nine  years ;  and  that,  ere  the  first  of  them  was 
produced,  St  Paul  had  been  a  convert  fifteen  years,  and  had 
reached  the  age  of  fifty.  The  earlier  and  longer  of  these 
periods  is  a  more  natural  seat  of  mental  change  than  the 
later  and  shorter;  especially  of  a  change  not  apparent  so 
much  in  particular  judgments  and  opinions,  as  in  the  whole 
complexion  of  spiritual  feeling  and  idea. 

But,  we  are  assured,  the  Apostle  directly  testifies  to  his 
own  progress  in  doctrine ;  and  intimates  (2  Cor.  v.  1 6)  that 
there  was  a  time  when  he  had  "known  Christ  according:  to 

O 

the  flesh,"  —  had  preached  him  "  in  a  more  Jewish  and  less 
spiritual  manner,"  —  though  "henceforth  he  would  know  him 
so  no  more."  Mr.  Stanley,  explaining  this  much-disputed 
phrase,  says :  — 

"  Probably,  he  must  be  here  alluding  to  those  who  laid 
stress  on  their  having  seen  Christ  in  Palestine,  or  on  their 
connection  with  him  or  with  '  the  brothers  of  the  Lord '  by 
actual  descent ;  and  if  so,  they  were  probably  of  the  party 
(of  Christ'  But  the  words  lead  us  to  infer  that  something 
of  this  kind  had  once  been  his  own  state  of  mind,  not  only  in 
the  time  before  his  conversion  (which  he  would  have  con- 
demned more  strongly),  but  since.  If  so,  it  is  (like  Phil.  iii. 
13  —  15)  a  remarkable  confession  of  former  weakness  and 
error,  and  of  conscious  progress  in  religious  knowledge."  - 
Vol.  IT.  p.  106. 

Did  St.  Paul  then  ever  "  lay  stress  on  having  seen  Christ 
in  Palestine"?  or  on  actual  blood-connection  with  him?  or 
on  "something  of  this  kind"?  To  personal  relations  with 
Jesus  in  his  ministry  or  family  he  had  no  pretensions ;  and 
the  spirit  with  which  he  had  always  treated  everything  "  of 
37  * 


438  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

this  kind,"  is  so  apparent  from  his  narrative  to  the  Galatians 
as  to  contradict  Mr.  Stanley's  inference.  Mr.  Jowett  gives 
the  phrase  a  different  turn.  Finding  (Gal.  v.  11)  the  Apostle 
charged  with  at  one  time  "  preaching  circumcision,"  he  accepts 
this  as  synonymous  with  "knowing  Christ  according  to  the 
flesh"  (i.  12).  This,  however,  would  imply  that  he  was 
originally  no  "  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,"  but  insisted  on  mediate 
conversion  into  the  Gospel  through  the  law.  Feeling  the 
irreconcilable  variance  of  such  an  hypothesis  with  the  auto- 
biographical notices  in  the  Epistles,  Mr.  Jowett  lowers  his 
phraseology,  and  attributes  to  St.  Paul's  early  teaching  only 
such  sentiments  as  "  might  be  thought "  to  make  him  "  a 
preacher  of  the  circumcision."  And  so  we  lose  ourselves 
again  in  "  something  of  the  kind."  Yet  at  last,  in  the  follow- 
ing passage,  we  find  the  critic's  finger  distinctly  laid  on  the 
doctrine  which  he  proposes  to  identify  with  the  Apostle's 
"  knowing  Christ  according  to  the  flesh." 

"  That  such  a  change "  (in  the  Apostle's  teaching)  "  is 
capable  of  being  traced,  has  been  already  intimated.  Both 
Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
practical  precepts,  are  the  expansion  and  repetition  of  a  sin- 
gle thought,  — '  the  coming  of  Christ.'  It  was  the  absorbing 
thought  of  the  Apostle  and  his  converts,  quickened  in  both  by 
the  persecutions  which  they  had  suffered.  Not  that  with  this 
expectation  of  Christ's  kingdom  there  mingled  any  vision  of 
a  temporal  rule  over  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth.  That  was 
far  from  the  Apostle.  But  there  was  that  in  it  which  fell 
short  of  the  more  perfect  truth.  It  was  not,  '  The  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you ' ;  but,  '  Lo  here,  and  lo  there.'  It  was  de- 
fined by  time,  and  was  to  take  place  within  the  Apostle's  own 
life.  The  images  in  which  it  clothed  itself  were  traditional 
among  the  Jews ;  they  were  outward  and  visible,  liable  to  the 
misconstruction  of  the  enemies  of  the  faith,  and  to  the  misap- 
prehension of  the  first  converts,  —  imperfectly,  as  the  Apostle 
saw  afterwards,  conveying  the  inward  and  spiritual  meaning. 
The  kingdom  which  they  described  was  not  eternal  and 
heavenly,  but  very  near  and  present,  ready  to  burst  forth 


ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  439 

everywhere,  and  by  its  very  nearness  in  point  of  time  seeming 
to  touch  our  actual  human  state.  Afterwards  the  kingdom 
of  God  appeared  to  remove  itself  within,  to  withdraw  into  the 
unseen  world.  The  earthen  vessel  must  be  broken  first,  the 
unbeliever  unclothed  that  he  might  be  clothed  upon,  that 
mortality  may  be  swallowed  up  of  life.  He  was  no  longer 
1  waiting  for  the  Son  from  heaven ' ;  but  '  desirous  to  depart 
and  be  with  Christ'  (Phil.  i.  23).  Such  is  the  change,  not 
so  much  in  the  Apostle's  belief  as  in  his  mode  of  conception ; 
a  change  natural  to  the  human  mind  itself,  and  above  all  to 
the  Jewish  mind ;  a  change  which,  after  it  had  taken  place, 
left  the  vestiges  of  the  prior  state  in  the  Montanism  of  the 
second  century,  which  may  not  improperly  be  regarded  as  the 
spirit  of  the  first  century  overliving  itself.  Old  things  had 
passed  away,  and,  behold,  all  things  became  new.  And  yet 
the  former  things  —  the  material  vision  of  Christ's  kingdom 
—  have  ever  been  prone  to  return  ;  not  only  in  the  first  and 
second  century,  but  in  every  age  of  enthusiasm,  men  have 
been  apt  to  walk  by  sight  and  not  by  faith.  In  the  hour  of 
trouble  and  perplexity,  when  darkness  spreads  itself  over  the 
earth,  and  Antichrist  is  already  come,  they  have  lifted  up 
their  eyes  to  the  heavens,  looking  for  the  sign  of  the  Son  of 
man."  — Vol.  I.  p.  10. 

If  to  announce  the  coining  of  Christ  is  to  "  know  him  ac- 
cording to  the  flesh,"  St.  Paul  assuredly  did  not  keep  his 
resolve  "  henceforth  to  know  him  no  more."  For  the  expec- 
tation reappears,  without  any  perceptible  change,  in  his  later 
Epistles;  as  in  Rom.  xiii.  11,  12  :  "  Do  this  the  rather,  know- 
ing the  time,  —  that  now  is  the  time  to  awake  out  of  sleep : 
for  our  salvation  is  nearer  now  than  when  we  first  believed: 
the  night  is  far  spent ;  the  day  is  at  hand  " ;  —  and  in  Phil.  iv. 
5  :  "  The  Lord  is  at  hand."  *  Moreover,  it  is  utterly  impos- 
sible that  this  element  of  his  teaching  could  be  adduced  in 
proof  of  his  "  preaching  circumcision."  It  had  nothing  to  do 

*  Compare  also  Rom.  xiv.  10;  Phil.  i.  6;  2  Tim.  iv.  1.  Nay,  the  very  pas- 
sage in  which  he  renounces  the  "  knowing  of  Christ  according  to  the  flesh," 
contains  the  doctrine  (2  Cor.  v.  10), 


440  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

with  the  question  of  Jew  and  Gentile  ;  with  the  most  opposite 
solutions  of  which  it  is  equally  compatible. 

In  truth,  our  author  has  here  combined  two  passage?, 
which  throw  no  light  on  one  another,  and  has  extracted  from 
each  what  neither  is  able  to  yield.  The  words  (in  Gal.  v.  11) 
"  if  I  stitt  preach  circumcision,"  do  not  really  imply  that  the 
Apostle  once  did  so  preach ;  though  in  an  accurate  writer 
this  sense  might  be  insisted  on.  He  is  not  thinking  of  his 
mvn  former  notions,  but  of  other  people's,  continuing  unaltered 
after  they  ought  to  have  changed.  There  were  persons  who, 
in  spite  of  the  dispensation  of  the  Spirit,  still  preached  cir- 
cumcision after  its  significance  was  gone.  This  did  not  Paul ; 
but  he  was  charged  with  doing  so :  and  he  says,  "  "Well,  if  so, 
I  am  a  Judaizer  like  you,  and  I  cannot  be  also  chargeable 
with  teaching  that  the  cross  of  Christ  supersedes  the  Law." 
The  true  sense  is,  therefore,  given  by  the  rendering,  "  If  I 
preach  circumcision  still,"  —  that  is,  as  still  necessary ;  and 
no  tale  is  told  of  the  Apostle's  earlier  teaching. 

The  other  passage  (2  Cor.  v.  16)  does  undoubtedly  refer 
to  a  former  state  of  the  writer's  own  mind,  when  he  "  recog- 
nized Christ  according  to  the  flesh."  But  he  alludes,  we 
apprehend,  to  the  period  when  he  was  a  "  Hebrew  of  the 
Hebrews " ;  and  had  no  conception  as  yet  of  a  suffering, 
dying,  and  heavenly  Christ ;  —  when  he  was  full  of  the 
thoughts  still  occupying  the  twelve,  who  did  not  take  in  the 
significance  of  the  cross,  but  carried  past  it  their  old  Messi- 
anic notions.  "  There  may  have  been  a  time,"  he  means  to 
say,  "  when  I  thought  only  of  a  national,  Israelitish,  histor- 
ical Messiah,  bound  by  the  law  of  his  fathers,  and  binding 
to  it.  Had  this  been  the  true  conception  of  him,  then  would 
it  have  been  a  matter  of  privilege  and  pride  to  be  near  his 
person,  to  stand  in  natural  relations  with  him,  and  be  mixed 
up  with  the  incidents  of  his  local  career.  But  ever  since  I 
understood  the  cross,  and  saw  that  Messiah's  life  began  in 
death,  a  far  other  truth  has  dawned  upon  me.  When  ho 
gave  up  the  ghost,  all  the  accidents  of  his  humanity  —  his 
lineage,  his  nationality,  his  earthly  manifestation  —  were  left 


ST.   PAUL   AND    HIS   MODEUN    STUDENTS.  441 

behind  and  died  away ;  and  they  must  carry  with  them  into 
extinction  whatever  feelings  had  collected  round  them, — 
family  pride,  Jewish  exclusiveness,  and  the  memories  of  per- 
sonal companionship.  From  that  moment,  clear  of  earthly 
entanglements,  Christ  in  the  spirit  draws  to  him  a  community 
of  human  spirits,  —  one  with  him  in  self-abnegation,  dying  to 
the  earthly  past ;  one  with  him  in  re-birth,  living  to  heavenly 
union  with  God.  Thus,  if  any  one  be  in  Christ,  it  amounts 
to  a  new  creation ;  his  old  self  has  passed  away ;  behold,  all 
things  have  become  new."  The  Apostle,  therefore,  sets  up 
the  death  of  Christ,  as  cutting  off,  for  all  disciples,  the  prior 
time  from  the  subsequent ;  as  flinging  the  former,  with  all 
the  human  conceptions  that  cling  to  it,  into  eclipse  and  anni- 
hilation, and  beginning  a  new  and  luminous  existence  in  the 
latter ;  as  breaking  the  very  identity  of  the  believer,  and  de- 
livering him  from  the  thraldom  of  nature  into  the  freedom  of 
the  Spirit.  The  cross  had  already  done  its  work  ere  St. 
Paul  became  a  disciple.  He  had  never  known  his  Lord  but 
in  the  spirit ;  and  the  "  Christ,"  whom  he  had  "  known  ac- 
cording to  the  flesh,"  was  the  Jewish  Messiah  of  his  previous 
and  unconverted  conception.  Mr.  Stanley's  objection,  that 
the  Apostle  could  hardly  have  spoken  of  his  unconverted 
state  without  stronger  condemnation,  might  perhaps  hold, 
were  the  allusions  to  his  fit  of  persecuting  violence  against 
the  Church.  But  there  was  no  occasion  for  self-reproach  in 
describing  the  picture  of  a  national  Messiah,  on  which,  in 
common  with  his  countrymen,  he  had  permitted  his  imagina- 
tion to  dwell.* 

*  With  a  curious  inconsistency  Mr.  Stanley  fixes  at  the  Ajwstle's  conversion 
the  date  after  which  he  would  no  longer  "  know  Christ  according  to  the 
flesh  " ;  yet  in  the  very  next  note  declares,  that  this  state  of  mind  must  bo 
referred  to  a  more  recent  period  than  the  conversion. 

"  OTTO  TOV  vvv,  from  the  time  of  my  conversion."  It  is  to  be  presumed  that 
this  is  also  Mr.  Stanley's  interpretation  of  the  vvv  ovKtrt  of  the  next  clause, 
which  only  repeats  specifically  of  "  Christ  "  what  has  just  been  said  univer- 
sally. 

"  fl  KM.  fyvvKapev  Kara  (TapKa  xpicrrov,  even  though  I  have  known; 
granting  that  I  have  known."  yivct<TKop.(i>,  i.  e.  Kara  crapKa,  "  heuceforth 


442  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

Neither,  then,  from  his  own  direct  assertion,  nor  from  com- 
parison of  his  several  writings,  inter  se,  do  we  learn  anything 
of  the  alleged  development  of  the  Apostle's  doctrine.  There 
is  no  element  in  it,  that,  from  inability  to  co-exist  with  the 
rest,  requires  to  be  assigned  to  a  date  of  its  own.  The  breach 
with  Judaism,  especially,  we  conceive  to  have  been  complete 
from  the  first,  and  unsusceptible  of  degrees ;  nay,  to  have 
been  the  initial  principle  of  his  conversion,  the  secretly  pre- 
pared condition  or  tendency  of  mind  that  rendered  him  acces- 
sible to  the  Divine  call,  and  open  to  sudden  change  in  the 
direction  of  his  character.  When  first  released  from  the 
formulas  of  a  Jewish  Christology,  and  communing  in  spirit 
with  a  heavenly  and  universal  Lord,  his  mind  would  doubt- 
less be  met  by  a  multitude  of  new  problems,  and  would  work 
freely  towards  their  resolution,  with  the  quickening  conscious- 
ness of  new  light  streaming  in,  and  a  grander  landscape  of 
Providence  opening  before  him.  The  very  intensity  of  this 
inward  action,  however,  —  the  thirst  it  sustains  for  its  own 
completion,  —  forbids  us  to  attribute  to  it  a  life-long  duration ; 
ere  fifteen  years  were  passed,  its  force  would  be  spent  by 
having  realized  its  work,  and  attained  the  equilibrium  of  a 
holy  peace.  Whatever  subsequent  changes  occurred  would 
be  of  a  different  nature,  enforced  by  the  turn  of  the  world's 
affairs ;  a  mere  remoulding  or  reproportioning  of  inward 
faiths,  in  adaptation  to  the  altered  pressures  of  the  hour.  Of 
such  modifications,  such  retreat  towards  the  background  of 
once  favorite  ideas,  and  advance  of  dim  suggestions  into  strong 
light,  there  are  doubtless  examples  in  St.  Paul.  The  expec- 
tation of  Christ's  speedy  coming  to  close  the  world's  affairs, 
and  realize  "  the  kingdom,"  could  not  but  dominate  at  first, 
and  pale  every  other  interest  and  belief  by  the  terror  and 
glory  of  its  light.  But  there  is  a  limit  beyond  which  the 

we  know  him  no  longer The  words  lead  ns  to  infer  that  something 

of  this  kind  had  once  been  [prior,  surely,  to  the  "henceforth"]  his  own 

ttate  of  mind,  not  only  in  the  time  before  his  conversion, but  since!" 

How  then  can  the  "  henceforth  "  serve  as  the  terminus  a  quo,  if  the  same 
state  lies  on  both  sides  of  it  ? 


ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS   MODERN    STUDENTS.  443 

strain  of  longing  cannot  be  sustained;  as  it  subsides,  the 
present  and  actual  recovers  power,  and  pushes  its  problems 
forward,  and  gains  once  more  the  eye  that  had  looked  beyond 
them.  And  so,  after  a  while,  spring  up  questions  of  Chris- 
tian order  that  will  not  bear  to  be  put  off;  —  how  to  live  in  a 
world  that,  however  near  its  doom,  entangles  the  disciple  still 
in  a  web  of  difficult  relations ;  how  to  touch  the  skirt  of  its 
idolatries,  and  not  be  tainted;  how  to  behave  to  wife  and 
child  in  this  last  generation  of  human  affairs  ;  how  to  seal  up 
the  passions  that  ought  to  die  within  the  saints,  but  were  not 
dead ;  how  to  prevent  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  from  overbal- 
ancing themselves,  on  the  heights  of  a  dizzied  mind,  into  out- 
rages on  nature ;  how  to  preserve  to  the  woman  and  the  slave, 
in  their  exulting  reaction  from  degraded  life,  the  sense  of 
modest  reverence,  and  the  appreciation  of  faithful  service. 
Day  by  day  questions  of  this  kind  insisted  on  attention,  and 
brought  out  a  fresh  type  of  sentiments  proper  for  their  deter- 
mination, and  offering  to  view  a  new  side  of  the  Christian 
thought  and  life.  Nor,  again,  could  many  years  elapse,  be- 
fore the  Jew  and  Gentile'difficulty  changed  its  whole  aspect, 
and  expanded,  from  a  petty  scruple  compromised  at  Jerusalem, 
into  a  world-wide  theology,  regulative  of  all  future  history. 
When  it  became  evident  that  it  was  no  question  about  a 
small  sprinkling  of  ethnic  converts,  —  mere  hangers-on  of 
Hebrew  families  and  synagogues ;  when  the  delay  of  Messiah, 
and  the  energy  of  Paul,  gave  occasion  for  thousands  to  pour 
in  ;  when  it  seemed  imminent  that  Palestine  should  be  out- 
voted and  overpowered  by  the  growth  of  the  foreign  Gospel, 
the  alarm  of  the  Judaic  Christians  became  great.  They 
tracked  Paul's  steps ;  their  emissaries  were  everywhere ; 
their  arguments  and  doctrine  became  more  constricted,  and 
his  more  wide  and  free ;  and  as  the  clouds  visibly  lowered 
over  Israel,  touching  him  as  well  as  them  with  gloom,  all  the 
more  did  he  see  the  sunshine  flood  the  lands  beyond ;  and  his 
national  trust  assumed  this  form,  —  that,  maybe,  the  outlying 
heavenly  light  may  creep  back  as  the  dark  hour  passes,  and 
again  set  the  shadows  moving  on  the  hills  it  has  so  long  glo- 


444  ST.   PAUL,   AND   HIS    MODEHN    STUDENTS. 

rifled.  The  Apostle  died  before  the  question  settled  itself  by 
the  mere  force  of  the  facts,  —  by  the  utter  breaking  up  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  and  the  inpouring  Gentile  numbers.  Others 
waited  to  be  driven  into  catholicity  by  events  ;  it  is  his  glory 
to  have  surrendered  himself  to  the  inspiration  that  implanted 
in  him  its  principle  from  the  first.  He  lived,  however,  to  see 
a  mighty  growth,  though  not  the  final  fruit ;  and  the  grand 
scale  on  which  he  conducts  the  controversy,  in  his  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  by  converging  reasonings  fetched  from  afar  out 
of  history,  and  aloft  out  of  the  perfections  of  God,  and  deep 
out  of  human  nature,  shows  how  his  thought  expands  with 
the  exigencies  of  experience,  and  advances  to  fill  the  whole 
greatness  of  his  opportunities. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  earliest  Apostolic  Chris- 
tianity consisted  mainly  in  the  faith  of  Christ's  coming  again, 
"  to-day,  or  to-morrow,  or  the  third  day."  This  event,  with 
its  effect  on  the  living,  was  the  one  only  point,  Mr.  Stanley 
conceives,  on  which  St.  Paul,  in  his  great  chapter  on  the  Res- 
urrection, professed  to  have  a  distinct  revelation  :  — 

"  On  one  point  only  he  professes  to  have  a  distinct  reve- 
lation, and  that  not  with  regard  to  the  dead,  but  to  the  living. 
So  firmly  was  the  first  generation  of  Christians  possessed  of 
the  belief  that  they  should  live  to  see  the  second  coming,  that 
it  is  here  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course  ;  and  their  fate,  as 
near  and  immediate,  is  used  to  illustrate  the  darker  and  more 
mysterious  subject  of  the  fate  of  those  already  dead.  That 
vision  of l  the  last  man,'  which  now  seems  so  remote  as  to  live 
only  in  poetic  fiction,  was  to  the  Apostle  an  awful  reality ; 
but  it  is  brought  forward  only  to  express  the  certainty  that, 
even  here,  a  change  must  take  place,  the  greatest  that  imagi- 
nation can  conceive."  —  Vol.  I.  p.  398. 

That  this  belief,  where  held  at  all,  should  be  paramount 
and  absorbing,  follows  from  its  very  nature.  Accordingly, 
St.  Paul,  as  Mr.  Jowett  remarks,  makes  even  the  essence  of 
the  Gospel  to  consist  in  it :  — 

"  It  appears  remarkable,  that  St.  Paul  should  make  the 
essence  of  the  Gospel  consist,  not  in  the  belief  in  Christ,  or 


ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  445 

in  taking  up  the  cross  of  Christ,  but  in  the  hope  of  his 
coming  again.  Such,  however,  was  the  faith  of  the  Thessa- 
lonian  Church;  such  is  the  tone  and  spirit  of  the  Epistle. 
Neither  in  the  Apostolic  times,  nor  in  our  own,  can  we  re- 
duce all  to  the  same  type.  One  aspect  of  the  Gospel  is  more 
outward,  another  more  inward ;  one  seems  to  connect  with  the 
life  of  Christ,  another  with  his  death  ;  one  with  his  birth  into 
the  world,  another  with  his  coming  again.  If  we  will  not 
insist  on  determining  the  times  and  the  seasons,  or  on  know- 
ing the  manner  how,  all  these  different  ways  may  lead  us 
within  the  veil.  The  faith  of  modern  times  embraces  many 
parts  and  truths  ;  yet  we  allow  men,  according  to  their  indi- 
vidual character,  to  dwell  on  this  truth  or  that,  as  more  pecu- 
liarly appropriate  to  their  nature.  The  faith  of  the  early 
Church  was  simpler  and  more  progressive,  pausing  in  the 
same  way  on  a  particular  truth,  which  the  circumstances  of 
the  world  or  the  Church  brought  before  them."  —  Vol.  I. 
p.  46. 

Only  it  is  not  on  " a  particular  truth"  but  on  a  particular 
error,  that  the  "  pause  "  of  faith  was  here  made  ;  —  an  error 
found  or  implied,  as  our  author  observes,  "  in  almost  every 
book  of  the  New  Testament ;  in  the  discourses  of  our  Lord 
himself,  as  well  as  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  ;  in  the  Epis- 
tles of  St.  Paul,  no  less  than  in  the  Book  of  the  Revelation." 
Mr.  Jowett  does  not  evade  the  difficulty.  In  an  admirable 
essay  on  this  special  subject,  he  frankly  states  the  facts,  traces 
their  influence  on  the  early  Church,  accepts  them  as  among 
the  limits  which  human  conditions  impose  on  Divine  revela- 
tion, and  shows  from  them,  how,  even  in  God's  highest  teach- 
ings, he  leaves  much  truth  to  be  drawn  forth  from  time  and 
experience. 

"  It  is  a  subject,"  he  says,  "  from  which  the  interpreter  of 
Scripture  would  gladly  turn  aside.  For  it  seems  as  if  he 
were  compelled  to  say  at  the  outset,  'that  St.  Paul  was  mis- 
taken, and  that  in  support  of  his  mistake  he  could  appeal  to 
the  words  of  Christ  himself.'  Nothing  can  be  plainer  than 
the  meaning  of  those  words,  and  yet  they  seem  to  be  con- 
38 


446  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

tradicted  by  the  very  fact,  that,  after  eighteen  centuries,  the 
world  is  as  it  was.  In  the  words  which  are  attributed,  in  the 
Epistle  of  St.  Peter,  to  the  unbelievers  of  that  day,  we  might 
truly  say  that,  since  the  fathers  have  fallen  asleep,  all  things 
remain  the  same  from  the  beginning.  Not  only  do  '  all  things 
remain  the  same,'  but  the  very  belief  itself  (in  the  sense  in 
which  it  was  held  by  the  first  Christians)  has  been  ready  to 
vanish  away."  —  Vol.  I.  p.  96. 

It  is  the  infirmity  of  human  nature — an  infirmity  irremov- 
able by  inspiration  —  to  translate  eternal  truth  into  forms  of 
time,  to  throw  color  into  the  invisible  till  it  can  be  seen,  and 
look  into  any  given  infinity  till  finite  shapes  appear  within  it, 
and  it  is  felt  as  infinite  no  more.  The  soul  tries,  as  it  were, 
every  apparent  path,  from  spiritual  apprehension  to  scientific 
knowledge,  from  deep  insight  to  clear  foresight,  from  perception 
of  what  God  is  to  vaticination  of  what  he  does ;  and  abides 
alone  with  the  Holy  Presence,  that  will  not  tell  His  coun- 
sels, but  is  ever  there  himself.  From  the  world  of  Divine 
reality  into  that  of  transient  phenomena,  there  is  no  bridge 
found  as  yet ;  and  only  He,  whose  footsteps  need  no  ground, 
can  pass  across.  We  know  somewhat  on  both  sides  ;  but  the 
chasm  between  vindicates  its  perpetuity  against  all  invasion. 
Vision  for  faith  ;  prevision  for  science :  —  this  seems  to  be 
the  inviolable  allotment  of  gifts  by  the  Father  of  lights.  And 
whoever  overlooks  this  rule,  and,  inspired  with  discernment 
of  what  absolutely  is,  ventures  to  pronounce  what  relatively 
will  be,  embodies  his  truth  in  a  form  whence  it  must  again 
be  disengaged.  The  deepest  spiritual  insight  is  ineffectual 
to  teach  past  history  ;  it  is  equally  so  to  teach  future  history. 
The  moment  you  lose  sight  of  this  fact,  and  expect  the  sons 
of  God  to  predict  for  you,  you  confound  inspiration  with 
divination,  and  will  pay  the  double  penalty  of  missing  the 
truth  they  have,  and  being  disappointed  at  that  which  they 
have  not.  It  is  not  always  much  otherwise  with  themselves ; 
the  light  which  they  are,  they  do  not  see  ;  and  that  which 
shapes  itself  before  them,  and  becomes  the  object  of  their 
minds,  is  but  the  shadow  of  human  things,  deepened  and 


ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  447 

sharpened,  perhaps  also  misplaced,  by  the  preternatural  in- 
tensity. By  its  very  inwardness  and  closeness  to  the  soul's 
centre,  God's  Spirit  may  express  itself  chiefly  in  the  uncon- 
scious attitudes  and  manifestations  of  the  mind  ;  especially  as  it 
is  these  that  often  leave  the  most  ineffaceable  impressions  of 
character  upon  others,  and  may,  therefore,  be  the  vehicle  of 
a  more  life-giving  power  than  any  purposed  teaching  or  more 
conscious  authority.  The  disappointment  of  an  avowed  pre- 
diction, or  the  error  of  an  elaborated  doctrine,  no  more  affects 
the  Divine  inspiration  at  the  heart  of  Christianity,  than  the 
miscalculations  and  failure  of  the  Crusades  disprove  their 
Providential  function  in  the  historical  education  of  mankind. 
Mr.  Jowett  takes  up  the  question  from  another  side,  and 
shows  how  the  faith  in  a  future  life,  though  not  directly  given, 
necessarily  disengaged  itself  in  the  end  from  the  expectation 
of  the  coming  of  Christ. 

"  We  naturally  ask,  why  a  future  life,  as  distinct  from  this, 
was  not  made  a  part  of  the  first  preaching  of  the  Gospel  ?  — 
why,  in  other  words,  the  faith  of  the  first  Christians  did  not 
exactly  coincide  with  our  own  ?  There  are  many  ways  in 
which  the  answer  to  this  question  may  be  expressed.  The 
philosopher  will  say,  that  the  difference  in  the  mode  of 
thought  of  that  age  and  our  own  rendered  it  impossible, 
humanly  speaking,  that  the  veil  of  sense  should  be  altogether 
removed.  The  theologian  will  admit  that  Providence  does 
not  teach  men  that  which  they  can  teach  themselves.  While 
there  are  lessons  which  it  immediately  communicates,  there  is 
much  which  it  leaves  to  be  drawn  forth  by  time  and  events. 
Experience  may  often  enlarge  faith ;  it  may  also  correct  it. 
No  one  can  doubt  that  the  faith  and  practice  of  the  early 
Church,  respecting  the  admission  of  the  Gentiles,  were  greatly 
altered  by  the  fact  that  the  Gentiles  themselves  flocked  in ; 
'the  kingdom  of  heaven  suffered  violence,  and  the  violent 
took  it  by  force.'  In  like  manner,  the  faith  respecting  the 
coming  of  Christ  was  modified  by  the  continuance  of  the 
world  itself.  Common  sense  suggests  that  those  who  were 
in  the  first  ecstasy  of  conversion,  and  those  who  oiler  the 


448  ST.   PAUL    A.ND    HIS   MODERN    STUDENTS. 

lapse  of  years  saw  the  world  unchanged  and  the  fabric  of  the 
Church  on  earth  rising  around  them,  could  not  regard  the 
day  of  the  Lord  with  the  same  feeling  While  to  the  one 
it  seemed  near  and  present,  at  any  moment  ready  to  burst 
forth,  to  the  other  it  was  a  long  way  off,  separated  by  time, 
and  as  it  were  by  place,  a  world  beyond  the  stars,  yet,  strange- 
ly enough,  also  having  its  dwelling  in  the  heart  of  man,  as  it 
were  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  lived,  the  mental  world  by 
which  he  was  surrounded.  Not  at  once,  but  gradually,  did 
the  cloud  clear  up,  and  the  one  mode  of  faith  take  the  place 
of  the  other.  Apart  from  the  prophets,  though  then  beyond 
them,  springing  up  in  a  new  and  living  way  in  the  soul  of 
man,  corrected  by  long  experience,  as  the  '  fathers  one  by  one 
fell  asleep,'  as  the  hopes  of  the  Jewish  race  declined,  as  ec- 
static gifts  ceased,  as  a  regular  hierarchy  was  established 
in  the  Church,  the  belief  in  the  coming  of  Christ  was  trans- 
formed from  being  outward  to  becoming  inward,  from  being 
national  to  becoming  individual  and  universal,  —  from  being 
Jewish  to  becoming  Christian."  —  Vol.  I.  p.  99. 

With  the  Apostle  Paul,  however,  the  "coming  of  Chiist" 
occupies  the  place  of  our  "  future  life  " ;  the  living  mass  of 
disciples,  waiting  till  then  for  the  "redemption  of  their 
bodies,"  fill  the  foreground  and  largest  space  in  the  scene; 
the  rising  of  the  dead  is  the  subsidiary  fact,  needful  to  the 
completeness  of  the  gift  of  life  in  Christ.  On  this  crisis,  sup- 
posed to  be  so  near,  his  eye  was  exclusively  fixed  whenever 
he  spoke  of  the  Christian's  "  salvation  "  ;  and  could  he  have 
been  told  that  no  such  crisis  would  come,  that,  for  fifty  gen- 
erations, the  present  order  of  the  world  would  vindicate  its 
stability,  we  cannot  imagine  what  shape  his  faith  would  have 
assumed ;  whether  he  would  have  made  light  of  all  these 
centuries,  said  that  with  the  Eternal  "a  thousand  years  are 
but  as  one  day,"  and  still  opposed  to  one  another  the  ala>v 
ovros  and  the  alu>v  /ieAAo>«> ;  or  whether  he  would  have  found 
that  the  distinction  was  evanescent,  and  the  kingdom  of  God 
was  to  be  not  sent  hither,  but  to  be  created  here ;  or  how,  in 
either  case,  he  would  have  represented  to  himself  the  state  of 


ST.    PAUL    AND   HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  449 

the  innumerable  dead.  These  are  questions  which  did  not 
arise  for  him ;  and  it  were  vain  to  conjecture  his  solution. 
He  is  engaged  with  other  problems ;  —  all,  indeed,  having 
reference  to  that  never  doubted  crisis,  and  arising  out  of  its 
manifold  relations,  jet  so  treated  by  him  as  to  detach  them 
unawares  from  their  origin,  and  give  them  a  permanent  place 
in  the  religious  consciousness  of  men.  Who  were  to  be  the 
subjects  of  that  salvation?  How  were  they  qualified?  By 
what  act  of  God's,  and  what  temper  of  their  own,  to  reach 
the  blessing?  What  present  assurance  had  they  of  this  ap- 
proaching good  ?  It  is  in  dealing  with  these  questions  that 
St.  Paul  darts  from  his  objective  theology  into  the  deepest 
recesses  of  human  experience,  and  fetches  into  expression 
spiritual  truths  that  transcend  their  incidental  occasion,  and 
will  remain  valid  while  there  is  a  soul  in  man. 

In  the  Apostle's  habit  of  thought  there  is  a  certain  antique 
realism  which  renders  many  of  his  doctrines  and  reasonings 
almost  unpresentable  before  a  modern  imagination.  With 
our  sharp  notions  of  personality,  of  the  entire  insulation  of 
each  mind  as  an  individual  entity,  of  the  antithesis  of  inner 
self  to  the  outer  everything,  we  are  quite  out  of  St.  Paul's 
latitude,  and  shall  be  perpetually  taking  for  figures  and  per- 
sonification what  had  a  literal  earnestness  for  him.  The  uni- 
verse is  with  him  full  of  Agents  that  for  us  are  only  Attri- 
butes, —  the  theatre  of  certain  real  principles  (i.  e.  principles 
having  existence  independent  of  us),  that  carry  out  their  ten- 
dencies and  history  among  themselves,  and  upon  and  through 
individual  men,  as  organs  or  media  of  their  activity.  Thus, 
Sin  is  neither  the  mere  voluntary  unfaithfulness  of  the  trans- 
gressor, nor  the  person  of  the  tempter;  but  both  of  these; 
and  that  not  apart  from  one  another  or  alternately,  but  blend- 
ed together  under  the  conception  of  a  universal  element  of 
evil,  having  its  objective  focus  in  Satan  and  its  subjective 
manifestation  in  man.  In  like  manner  its  opposite,  Righteous- 
ness (Justification),  is  not  exclusively  human  rectitude,  or  the 
Divine  justice,  or  yMem-goodness  substituted  for  genuine  ;  but 
less  ethical  than  the  first,  less  forensic  than  the  last,  and  more 
38* 


450  ST.    PAUL    AND   HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

ontological  than  either ;  that  element,  we  may  say,  in  the  es- 
sence of  God  which  sets  man  at  one  with  Him,  and  is  the 
common  ground  of  their  harmonious  relation.  Around  these 
two  contrasted  principles,  others,  equally  conceived  as  real 
elements,  and  misunderstood  as  mere  attributes  or  phenom- 
ena, group  themselves  on  either  side.  With  the  former  is 
Death,  —  the  pair  being  gemini,  not  simply  joined  by  decree 
of  God  in  time,  but  inseparable  in  rerum  natura,  co-ordinates 
by  physical  necessity ;  and  Flesh,  the  material  or  medium 
that  furnishes  the  endowments  of  sense,  and  instinct,  and 
the  natural  will,  and  affords  to  Sin  its  seat  and  hold  upon 
us  ;  and  Law,  the  discriminating  light  that  parts  the  mixture 
of  good  and  evil,  and,  on  entering  into  us,  brings  the  slumber- 
ing evil  into  the  conscious  state,  and  so  makes  it  sin  relatively 
to  us,  and  simultaneously  shows  us  the  good  without  adding 
to  the  force  for  producing  it.  With  the  latter  —  Righteous- 
ness —  are  enjoined  Life,  the  positive  opposite  of  Death,  and, 
like  it,  a  function  of  the  moral  as  well  as  the  natural  constitu- 
tion, the  immortal  energy  inherent  in  sinless  being ;  and 
Spirit,  the  absolute  essence  of  God,  present  as  the  vivifying 
source  of  whatever  transcends  nature,  —  a  faint  susceptibility, 
felt  only  to  be  overmastered,  in  the  sons  of  Adam,  —  a  con- 
quering power,  coalescing  with  the  personality  itself,  in  Christ 
and  his  disciples,  —  and  a  spontaneous  flow  of  higher  life 
seizing  on  converted  men  as  organs  of  its  charismata;  and 
Faith,  —  the  opposite  of  Law,  —  the  passing  out  of  ourselves 
to  embrace  unseen  relations,  to  make  conscious  appropriation 
of  the  Spirit,  and  thus  enter  into  union  with  Christ  and  God. 
Even  this  most  subjective  of  all  the  great  principles  of  the 
Apostle's  theology,  is  more  than  a  mere  private  and  personal 
act.  As  common  to  all  the  disciples,  —  the  simultaneous  gaze 
that  connects  them  as  a  whole  with  Christ,  —  its  single  threads 
pass  out  and  become  a  converging  web.  As  something  other 
than  the  act  (of  obedience)  which  men  were  under  bond  to 
render,  it  is  a  new  institute  of  God,  and,  relatively  to  them, 
reads  itself  off  as  Grace.  As  opposed  to  Law,  in  which  there 
is  a  delivery  of  the  Divine  will  into  men,  it  involves  a  draw- 


ST.    PAUL   AND  HIS   MODERN    STUDENTS.  451 

ing  by  Divine  love  of  an  affection  out  of  men.  And  under 
all  these  aspects  it  acquires  something  of  that  indeterminate 
character,  subjective  and  objective  at  once,  which  the  associ- 
ated elements  possess  in  a  much  higher  degree.  The  same 
mode  of  thought  is  traceable  in  another  form.  The  Apostle 
exhibits  the  providential  scheme  of  the  human  race  by  dis- 
tributing them  into  two  successive  gentes,  —  the  earthy  or  nat- 
ural, the  heavenly  or  spiritual ;  and  lays  down  all  the  predi- 
cates of  each  direct  from  the  personal  history  of  their  re- 
spective heads,  Adam  and  Christ.  Whatever  is  true  of  the 
founder  is  considered  as  known  of  the  followers ;  the  phenom- 
ena of  his  being  spread  themselves  inclusively  to  theirs. 
He  is  regarded,  not  simply  as  a  representative  individual, 
while  they  are  the  represented  individuals  ;  but  as  a  type  of 
being  within  which  they  are  contained,  and  which  in  its  his- 
tory and  vicissitudes  carries  them  hither  and  thither.  Con- 
demnation and  redemption  take  place  by  Kinds,  and  fall  on 
particular  persons  in  virtue  of  their  partaking  of  these  kinds. 
Settle  the  attributes  of  the  species,  as  found  in  its  archetype, 
and  you  know  what  to  say  of  individuals.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  understand  this  way  of  thinking  so  long  as  the  Apostle 
applies  it,  as  a  naturalist  might,  to  the  Adamic  gens;  and 
argues,  that,  being  made  of  earthy  materials  (gooou),  and 
having  the  focus  of  personality  in  <rop£,  with  no  adequate 
counterpoise  of  irnvfia,  it  is  the  seat  of  sin  and  death.  But 
it  is  less  easy  to  follow  the  Apostle's  meaning  when  he  simi- 
larly identifies  Christians  with  Christ,  and  transfers,  or  rather 
extends,  to  them  all  the  great  characteristics  of  his  existence. 
They  are  crucified  to  the  world.  They  are  "  all  dead  "  with 
him ;  they  are  "  buried  with  him  "  in  baptism ;  they  are  "  ris- 
en with  him  " ;  their  "  life  is  hid  with  him  in  God."  And 
while  this  is  true  of  living  disciples,  he  is  no  less  "  the  first- 
fruits  of  them  that  sleep  " ;  his  resurrection  is  but  the  first 
pulsation  of  an  act  that  next  proceeds  to  theirs,  and  then  com- 
pletes the  transformation  of  the  living.  All  this  is  meant  for 
more  than  rhetorical  analogy.  With  Christ,  and  in  Christ, 
took  place  a  re-constitution  of  humanity.  Of  the  new  man, 


452  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

he  was  the  ideal  and  archetype  ;  inverting  the  proportions  of 
<rd/>|  and  Tn/ev/ia,  and  having  his  essence  and  personality  in  the 
latter,  so  as  to  render  sin  an  unrealized  possibility  and  death 
a  transitory  accident.  The  spirit  in  him  which  evinced  its 
life-giving  power  in  raising  him  from  the  dead,  is  no  more 
limited  to  his  individuality,  than  flesh  and  blood  were  the 
attributes  of  Adam  only.  It  spreads  to  the  whole  family  of 
souls,  springing  up  into  his  kindred ;  it  flows  into  them  as 
they  look  up  to  him  in  faith,  and  are  reborn  to  him ;  it  repeats 
in  them  the  fruits  it  produced  in  him,  —  the  sacrifice  of  self, 
—  the  dying  away  of  passion  and  pride,  —  the  heavenly  love 
that  darts  upon  the  wing  whither  the  bleeding  feet  of  con- 
science fail  to  climb,  —  together  with  many  "  a  gift  less  ex- 
cellent," of  healing  and  of  tongues.  The  consciousness  of 
this  new  heart,  set  free  with  Divine  affections,  is  immediate 
evidence  of  their  union  with  Christ,  of  the  Real  Presence  of 
his  Spirit  within  them,  of  their  substantive  incorporation  into 
his  essence,  and  therefore  of  a  restored  harmony  and  even 
oneness  with  God.  To  what  extent  the  Apostle  conceived 
that  this  transformation  of  nature,  by  partnership  in  the  prop- 
erties of  the  heavenly  Christ,  might  be  carried  in  the  living 
disciple,  it  is  not  possible  to  say.  It  amounted  to  "  a  new 
creation " ;  and  among  the  "  old  things  "  that  had  already 
"  passed  away,"  he  probably  included  more  than  the  moral 
habits  and  feelings  of  the  unconverted  state  ;  and  conceived 
that  the  same  spirit  by  which  these  died  out  was  purifying 
also  the  bodily  organism  of  the  believer,  and  leavening  it 
with  antiseptic  preparation  for  its  final  investiture  with  im- 
mortality. That  last  "  change,"  like  the  resurrection  itself, 
is  not  regarded  as  an  external  miracle,  suddenly  forced  on  an 
uncongenial  material  by  mere  Almightiness ;  but  as  the  last 
and  crowning  stage  of  an  internal  development,  whose  princi- 
ple had  long  been  active,  —  the  emergence  from  all  entangle- 
ment with  "  flesh  and  blood  "  of  that  spiritual  element  which 
in  Jesus  "  could  not  be  holden  of  death,"  and  which,  dwelling 
in  his  disciples,  already  deadened  and  damped  the  vitality  of 
the  trap!-,  and  would  at  last  quicken  the  aS>/j.a  with  imperisha- 


ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  453 

ble  life.  Thus  it  is  that  "  Christ "  is  not  to  St.  Paul  an  his- 
torical individual,  but  a  generic  nature,  —  the  archetype  of  a 
spiritual  species,  sharing  his  attributes  and  repeating  his  ex- 
perience. 

Cleared  as  a  stage  for  these  contending  principles,  the  uni- 
verse witnesses  their  co-existence  and  antagonism  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  time. 

The  great  drama  has  two  main  acts,  and  the  cross  of  Christ 
divides  them. 

The  first  is  a  descending  period,  accumulating  the  force  of 
evil  to  a  pitch  of  frightful  triumph.  The  second  is  an  as- 
cending period,  at  whose  goal  the  last  enemy  is  gone. 

In  the  opening  scene  of  the  first,  extending  from  Adam  to 
Moses,  both  Flesh  and  Spirit  were  there  ;  not  yet,  however, 
in  conflict ;  but  the  latter  sleeping  as  a  mere  susceptibility, 
and  the  former  having  its  own  way  in  the  instinctive  life  of 
man.  The  state  was  not  one  which,  had  the  comparison  been 
made,  would  have  accorded  with  the  Divine  will.  It  was 
therefore  really,  though  unconsciously,  a  reign  of  Sin,  as  was 
proved  by  the  presence  of  Sin's  inseparable  sign,  —  the  gen- 
erations died. 

The  next  scene  was  marked  by  the  introduction  of  Law. 
The  effects  were,  to  bring  into  full  consciousness  the  sin  be- 
fore unmarked,  and  so  make  it  exceedingly  sinful ;  to  set  man 
at  variance  with  himself  by  giving  him  discernment,  and 
quickening  his  longing  and  his  fear,  without  any  new  spring 
of  force  ;  and  actually  to  multiply  transgressions  by  enumer- 
ating and  suggesting  them. 

Hence,  at  the  close  of  the  period,  an  utter  rotting  away  of 
human  society,  and  a  confirmed  moral  incapacity  of  the 
widest  sweep.  The  spontaneous  law  of  nature  and  the  writ- 
ten law  of  Moses  being  equally  set  at  naught  by  Gentile  and 
by  Jew,  any  promises  God  might  have  given  fell  through, 
from  human  breach  of  the  conditions.  This  was  the  moment 
seized  for  instituting  a  new  creation  ;  the  promised  Messiah 
of  the  Jews  being  the  vehicle  of  its  accomplishment,  and  the 
link  of  connection  between  the  old  and  the  new. 


454  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

All  the  Messianic  conditions  were  fulfilled,  —  the  right 
tribe,  the  right  family,  the  right  personal  marks  and  charac- 
teristics. But  they  were  also  transcended.  Along  with  the 
human  infirmities  and  liabilities  was  present,  in  this  arche- 
type of  a  new  race,  the  Spirit  hi  such  full  measure  as  to 
constitute  his  proper  self,  or  at  least  win  that  centre  by  com- 
plete victory  over  nature  and  temptation  and  surrender  of  all 
he  had  and  was  to  a  Divine  Love.  As  he  had  baffled  and 
held  off  Sin,  Death  had  so  far  no  business  with  him.  Yet 
what  was  to  be  done  ?  for  there  were  conflicting  claims  upon 
him.  Sinless  in  himself,  he  was  of  a  sin-doomed  type,  the 
likeness  of  sinful  flesh  (6/Aouo/j.a  a-apKos  d/xa/mas),  and  therefore 
liable  to  the  incidents  of  such  a  race.  This  was  at  least  his 
property  by  nature.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  internally 
and  essentially  of  the  opposite  type ;  the  image  of  God  (et\wi» 
ToO  0eo€),  and  so,  foreign  to  the  mortal  fate,  at  once  imperish- 
able and  life-giving.  In  the  person  of  this  double  nature,  the 
contest  between  the  antagonists  must  come  to  an  issue ;  and 
while  both  gam  their  due,  it  is  the  last  triumph  of  evil,  the 
first  opening  of  eternal  good.  Sin,  recognizing  in  his  suffer- 
ing and  mortal  frame  its  own  physical  counterpart  and 
shadow,  strikes  him  with  death,  exerting  for  that  end  its  own 
"  strength  "  and  instrument,  "  the  Law."  But  in  thus  carry- 
ing its  course  upon  the  guiltless,  it  overreached  and  spent 
itself;  and  the  Law,  lending  itself  to  such  an  act,  fell  into 
self-contradiction,  and  disappeared  in  suicide.  He  died, 
therefore,  in  virtue  of  what  was  really  foreign  to  him,  as 
representative  of  a  Sin  which  was  not  his,  but  which  yet  in- 
volved him,  as  human,  in  sorrow  and  mortality.  But  no 
sooner  had  tliis  happened,  than  his  "  Righteousness  "  vindi- 
cated its  power.  He  came  out  of  death,  which  could  not  keep 
one  so  holy ;  and  now,  escaped  from  nationality,  and  placed 
aloft  as  the  ideal  of  the  new  humanity,  his  vivifying  spirit 
penetrates  the  heart  of  men  below,  and,  taking  them  on  the 
side  of  faith  and  love  instead  of  will,  kindles  a  divine  fire 
that  burns  up  the  dead  elements  of  the  "  old  man,"  and 
wraps  the  "  heavenly  places  "  and  the  earthly  in  a  common 


ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODEKN    STUDENTS.  455 

blaze.  By  spiritual  affiliation  with  him,  his  disciples  enter 
the  essence  of  all  holy  and  immortal  natures.  And  so  it 
comes  to  pass,  that,  through  the  incidence  of  sorrow  and  death 
in  the  wrong  place,  an  objective  power  of  "  righteousness  "  is 
set  free,  that  reconciles  mankind  with  God,  and  restores  them 
to  sanctity  and  life.  The  past  and  the  future  of  humanity 
were  concentrated,  just  at  the  turning  point  between  them,  in 
one  person ;  the  natural  element,  bearing  the  burden  of  the 
past,  perished  and  fell  away  ;  the  spiritual  and  divine  princi- 
ple, containing  the  germ  of  the  future,  asserted  its  inextin- 
guishable life ;  and  from  heaven  evinced  its  self-multiplying 
power,  making  him  only  "  the  first-born  of  many  brethren." 

Thus  was  the  second  act  initiated,  which  also  presented 
two  successive  scenes.  During  the  first,  the  Christ  was  still 
in  heaven ;  and  his  Spirit  on  earth,  having  the  community  of 
disciples  for  its  organ  or  "  body,"  stood  in  presence  still  of  the 
opposing  powers.  In  the  world,  it  encroached  upon  the 
province  of  evil  continually,  and  reclaimed  a  citadel  here  and 
there.  In  the  Church,  if  it  infused  as  yet  no  perfect  grace, 
it  left  its  "  earnest  "  everywhere  ;  —  ecstatic  gifts  and  mystic 
insights ;  hearts  set  free  from  pride  and  scorn,  and  brought 
to  the  meekness  and  gentleness  of  Christ ;  the  self-seeking 
will  surrendered ;  the  anxious  conscience  led  to  trust ;  the 
tangles  of  thought  smoothed  out  by  a  wisdom  not  its  own  ; 
and  outward  distinctions  reduced  to  naught  by  faith,  and 
hope,  and  charity.  Nevertheless,  Satan  disturbed  the  Koapos 
still ;  and  even  the  children  of  the  Spirit  were  but  prisoners 
yet,  and  felt  the  tent  of  nature  but  a  poor  abode.  They  had 
yet  to  wait  for  their  full  adoption  ;  when  the  tabernacle  in 
which  they  groaned  being  dissolved,  they  should  be  invested 
with  an  unwasting  frame. 

This  was  reserved  for  the  final  scene,  the  coming  and  the 
reign  of  Christ.  At  this  culminating  crisis,  the  antagonism 
which  in  Adam  was  as  yet  unfelt  from  the  ascendency  of 
nature,  was  to  die  out  and  cease  on  the  absolute  triumph  of 
the  Spirit.  Physically,  death  was  to  disappear  ;  the  departed 
being  finally  reinstated  in  life,  and  the  living  "  clothed  upon  " 


456  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODEUX    STUDENTS. 

with  their  new  garment  ere  yet  they  were  stripped  of  the 
old.  Morally,  the  remnant  of  inner  strife  and  temptation, 
that  even  the  faith  of  saints  might  leave  unappeased,  would 
pass  away,  aspiration  be  harmonized  with  achieving  power, 
and  in  conscious  presence  of  the  objects  of  deepest  affection 
and  reverence  the  sighs  of  separation  would  cease.  As  soon 
as  resistance  was  over,  and  there  was  nothing  to  subdue,  the 
separate  function  of  God's  redeeming  and  sanctifying  Spirit 
would  find  no  work ;  "  the  kingdom  would  be  resigned  to  the 
Father " ;  "  the  Son  would  be  subject "  ;  and  "  the  Trinity 
would  cease." 

Whether  the  Apostle's  vision  of  trust  was  really  of  univer- 
sal success,  and  included  even  those  who  should  still  be  found 
astray  at  last,  is  a  question  difficult  of  direct  determination  ; 
but  not  very  doubtful  when  tried  by  the  general  scope  of  his 
doctrine.  Mr.  Jowett's  judgment,  given  in  the  following  pas- 
sage, truly  seizes,  we  think,  the  feeling  of  St.  Paul.  The 
author  is  commenting  on  the  parallel  drawn  between  Adam 
and  Christ,  especially  on  the  words,  "  As  by  one  man's  trans- 
gression sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death  by  sin,"  and  has 
shown  that  they  do  not  teach  any  imputation  of  Adam's  sin. 

"  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  ask  the  further  question,  what 
meaning  we  can  attach  to  the  imputation  of  sin  and  guilt 
which  are  not  our  own,  and  of  which  we  are  unconscious. 
God  can  never  see  us  other  than  we  really  are,  or  judge  us 
without  reference  to  all  our  circumstances  and  antecedents. 
If  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  he  would  allow  a  fiction  of 
mercy  to  be  interposed  between  ourselves  and  him,  still  less 
can  we  imagine  that  he  would  interpose  a  fiction  of  ven- 
geance. If  he  requires  holiness  before  he  will  save,  much 
more,  may  we  say  in  the  Apostle's  form  of  speech,  will  he 
require  sin  before  he  dooms  us  to  perdition.  Nor  can  any- 
thing be  in  spirit  more  contrary  to  the  living  consciousness 
of  sin  of  which  the  Apostle  everywhere  speaks,  than  the 
conception  of  sin  as  dead,  unconscious  evil,  originating  in  the 
act  of  an  individual  man,  in  the  world  before  the  flood. 

"On  the  whole,  then,  we  are  led  to  infer  that  in  the  Au- 


ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  437 

gustinian  interpretation  of  this  passage,  even  if  it  agree  with 
the  letter  of  the  text,  too  little  regard  has  been  paid  to  the 
extent  to  which  St.  Paul  uses  figurative  language,  and  to  the 
manner  of  his  age  in  interpretations  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  difficulty  of  supposing  him  to  be  allegorizing  the  narrative 
of  Genesis  is  slight,  in  comparison  with  the  difficulty  of  sup- 
posing him  to  countenance  a  doctrine  at  variance  with  our 
first  notions  of  the  moral  nature  of  God. 

"  But  when  the  figure  is  dropped,  and  allowance  is  made 
for  the  manner  of  the  age,  the  question  once  more  returns 
upon  us,  — '  What  is  the  Apostle's  meaning  ? '  He  is  arguing, 
we  see,  nor  av&pamov,  and  taking  his  stand  on  the  received 
opinions  of  his  time.  Do  we  imagine  that  his  object  is  no 
other  than  to  set  the  seal  of  his  authority  on  these  traditional 
beliefs  ?  The  whole  analogy,  not  merely  of  the  writings  of 
St.  Paul,  but  of  the  entire  New  Testament,  would  lead  us  to 
suppose  that  his  object  was  not  to  reassert  them,  but  to  teach, 
through  them,  a  new  and  nobler  lesson.  The  Jewish  Rabbis 
would  have  spoken  of  the  first  and  second  Adam  ;  but  which 
of  them  would  have  made  the  application  of  the  figure  to  all 
mankind  ?  A  figure  of  speech  it  remains  still,  an  allegory 
after  the  manner  of  that  age  and  country,  but  yet  with  no 
uncertain  or  ambiguous  interpretation.  It  means  that  '  God 
hath  made  of  one  blood  all  the  nations  of  the  earth ' ;  that 
4  he  hath  concluded  all  under  sin,  that  he  may  have  mercy 
upon  all ' ;  that  life  answers  to  death,  the  times  before  to  the 
times  after  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  means  that  we 
are  one  in  a  common  sinful  nature,  which,  even  if  it  be  not 
derived  from  the  sin  of  Adam,  exists  as  really  as  if  it  were. 
It  means  that  we  shall  be  made  one  in  Christ  by  the  grace 
of  God,  in  a  measure  here,  more  fully  and  perfectly  in  anoth- 
er world.  More  than '  this  it  also  means,  and  more  than  lan- 
guage can  express,  but  not  the  weak  and  beggarly  elements 
of  Rabbinical  tradition.  We  may  not  encumber  St.  Paul 
with  the  things  which  he  '  destroyed.'  What  it  means  further 
is  not  to  be  attained  by  theological  distinctions,  but  by  putting 
off  the  old  man  and  putting  on  the  new  man."  —  Vol.  II.  p.  1GG. 
39 


458  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

On  surveying  the  picture  of  time  and  the  history  of  human- 
ity that  lay  beneath  St.  Paul's  eye,  the  question  naturally 
arises,  What  is  its  significance  and  value  for  us  ?  Manifestly 
not  those  of  an  absolute  guide  through  the  labyrinthine  depths 
of  the  Divine  counsels.  "  We  can  scarcely  imagine  what 
would  have  been  the  feeling  of  St.  Paul,  could  he  have  fore- 
seen that  later  ages  would  look  not  to  the  faith  of  Abraham 
in  the  Law,  but  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  as  the  highest 
authority  on  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  ;  or,  that  they 
would  have  regarded  the  allegory  of  Hagar  and  Sarah,  in  the 
Galatians,  as  a  difficulty  to  be  resolved  by  the  inspiration  of 
the  Apostle."  *  We  cannot  say  of  him  less  than  Mr.  Jowett 
says  of  a  greater  than  Paul,  that  in  many  places  ''  his  teaching 
is  on  a  level  with  the  modes  of  thought  of  his  age."  (I.  97.) 
The  ultimate  point  towards  which  all  the  lines  of  his  expec- 
tations converged,  and  all  the  history  of  the  past  appeared  to 
gaze,  we  know  to  have  had  no  existence  where  he  placed  it ; 
and  as  the  whole  scheme  was  laid  out  to  lead  up  to  this,  it 
might  seem  to  disappear  as  the  fabric  of  a  dream.  Yet  it  is 
not  so ;  and  the  very  fear  implies  that  we  look  in  the  wrong 
place  for  the  permanent  amid  the  evanescent  in  the  Gospel. 
Religion  —  revealed  or  unrevealed  —  is  no  production  of 
the  systematizing  intellect,  —  inspired  or  uninspired.  The 
workings  of  constructive  thought  follow,  not  lead  it.  Their 
function  is  not  creative,  but  simply  adaptive  ;  —  to  find  a  settle- 
ment and  orderly  method  of  being  and  growing  for  some  new 
principle  of  divine  life,  or  for  some  old  principle  in  an  altered 
scene ;  to  ward  off  from  it  uncongenial  elements,  remove 
dead  matter  that  chokes  it,  and  surround  it  with  conditions 
whence  it  may  weave  its  organism  around  it  and  send  deep 
roots  into  the  mellowed  soil  of  humanity.  Divine  truth  is 
the  coming  of  God  to  man,  pathless  and  traceless  :  theologic 
thought  is  the  retrogressive  search  of  man  after  God,  not  by 
"  Sis  ways  which  are  past  finding  out,"  and  invisible  as 
night,  but  necessarily  by  such  tracks  as  the  age  has  opened 
and  another  age  may  close  or  change. 

*  Jowett,  II.  142. 


ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS   MODERN    STUDENTS.  459 

The  manifestation  of  supernatural  realities  to  the  human 
soul  involves  so  much  which  is  mysterious  and  unique,  that 
only  under  great  qualification  can  we  compare  it  with  the 
known  mental  processes.  But  were  we  to  conceive  of  it  less 
by  the  analogy  of  scientific  discovery,  and  more  by  that  of 
artistic  apprehension,  many  an  embarrassment  would  be 
saved.  In  a  work  of  high  art,  you  give  a  Phidias  or  a  Rsif- 
faelle  his  subject;  he  necessarily  takes  it  from  that  which 
stirs  the  heart  of  his  time,  and  has  a  solemnity  for  his  own 
and  you  do  not  find  fault  that  there  is  mythology  in  the 
group,  or  Mariolatry  in  the  picture.  Through  the  concep- 
tions of  one  time  there  speaks  a  feeling  for  all ;  and  the  rep- 
resentation may  be  immortal,  when  the  thing  represented 
has  long  been  historical.  Nor  is  it  that  it  only  reflects 
honor  on  its  author's  name.  It  springs  from  an  inner  har- 
mony with  the  very  heart  of  things,  and  it  gives  a  new 
expressiveness  to  life  and  nature,  and  leaves  behind  a  self- 
luminous  spot  in  the  world,  where  there  was  "  gross  dark- 
ness "  before.  Hence  it  looks  into  the  eyes,  and  finds  the 
soul  of  one  generation  after  another ;  and,  amid  the  change 
of  materials  and  the  succession  of  schools,  keeps  alive  the 
very  sense  by  which  alone  "  materials  "  can  be  wielded  and 
"  schools  "  exist.  With  just  the  same  result  do  the  accidental 
and  temporary  media  fall  away  from  early  Christianity  ;  dis- 
engaging a  residuary  spirit  that  takes  up  the  life  of  all  times, 
touches  a  consciousness  else  unreached,  and  breathes  upon 
the  face  of  things,  till  the  meanings  writ  thore  with  invisible 
ink  come  into  clearness  before  the  eye.  If  it  pleases  God, 
instead  of  spreading  at  our  feet  the  things  to  be  seen,  rather 
to  quicken  our  vision  till  we  see  them  where  they  are,  it  is 
revelation  all  the  same,  only  deeper  and  more  various ;  not 
an  incident  of  position,  but  a  power  that  can  migrate  in  place 
and  time,  and  read  the  Providential  perspective  everywhere. 
This  profounder  insight  into  divine  relations  it  has  been  the 
especial  office  of  St.  Paul  to  awaken ;  and  none  the  less  that 
the  flashes  by  which  he  gives  it  are  incidental,  and  do  not 
proceed  from  the  Rabbinic  lamp  which  he  holds  up  to  his 


460  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS   MODERN    STUDENTS. 

apocalyptic  pictures.  Indeed,  it  is  he,  in  great  measure,  that 
has  carried  Christendom  into  regions  other  than  his  own. 
His  thought  is  everywhere  penetrated  with  an  intense  heat, 
leavened  with  lightning,  that  fuses  the  mass  containing  it, 
and  runs  off  alive  for  other  media  to  hold  it.  The  revelation 
to  him  of  Christ  in  heaven  set  in  action  all  the  resources  of 
his  nature,  and  gave  them  a  preternatural  tension.  The 
sentiments  which  found  satisfaction,  the  intimations  Avhich 
came  into  expression,  in  his  form  of  doctrine,  are  now  for 
ever  human,  fixed  in  the  self-knowledge  of  men  by  his  faith- 
ful words,  and  sure  to  transmigrate  into  other  forms,  when 
their  first  embodiment  will  hold  them  no  more.  And  so  much 
is  the  Apostle's  later  exposition  of  his  hope  divested  of  what 
is  special  to  himself,  that  to  all  ages  since  it  has  struck  upon 
the  ear  of  mourners  along  with  the  very  toll  of  the  funeral 
bell ;  and  though  often  indistinct  to  their  mind,  it  has  jarred 
with  no  falsehood  on  their  heart,  but  sounded  like  an  anthem 
in  the  dark,  —  great  music  and  dim  words.  It  needed  only 
time  and  events  to  transmute  the  doctrine  into  that  of  a  future 
life.  For  it  included  —  in  order  to  meet  the  case  of  those 
who  had  "fallen  asleep  "  •  —  the  conception  of  a  path,  through 
death  before  the  time,  "to  depart  and  be  with  Christ"  ;  only 
that  this  was  the  minor  provision,  the  by-path  of  the  early 
few.  Reopened,  however,  as  it  always  was  when  a  disciple 
passed  away,  it  became  an  evermore  familiar  track ;  and  ex- 
perience had  but  to  negative  the  opposite  direction  by  leaving 
it  untraced,  in  order  that  the  upward  track  should  become  the 
via  sacra  of  human  faith.  And  can  any  one  doubt  what  the 
justification  by  faith  means,  when  construed  into  the  language 
of  universal  experience  ?  It  means  that  God  wants  more 
from  us,  and  also  less,  than  the  anxious  will  can  do ;  more, 
because  he  wants  ourselves ;  less,  because  he  does  not  want 
our  niceties  of  work.  It  means  that  we  are  called  to  spiritual 
heights  we  strive  in  vain  to  climb ;  that  the  most  patient  feet, 
step  after  step  upon  the  ground,  will  but  stand  upon  the 
earthly  mountains  after  all ;  and  it  is  the  fiery  chariot  of  love 
and  trust  that  must  bear  us  into  heaven.  It  means  that  there 


ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  461 

is  an  affectionateness  in  God  that  looks  to  what  we  are, 
rather  than  what  we  do,  and  more  readily  speaks  to  us  of 
communion  than  of  obedience.  True,  this  is  but  another 
way  of  saying  what  our  religion  elsewhere  more  ethically 
expresses,  that  God  requires  our  perfect  service,  and  yet  has 
forgiveness  for  what  is  imperfect.  But  this  statement,  though 
it  means  also  that  heaven  is  open  to  the  pure,  intent,  and 
single  heart,  touches  a  spring  less  deep  and  strong.  It 
divides  the  integral  and  living  fact,  even  in  regard  to  God, 
by  describing  it  as  a  demand  of  the  whole,  and  then  a  sub- 
traction of  a  part ;  and  so  exhibiting  it  rather  as  a  dissolution 
of  justice,  than  as  truth  and  wholeness  of  love.  And  the 
Pauline  doctrine  appeals  with  far  more  immediate  power  to 
human  consciousness,  especially  to  that  third  of  mankind 
whom  a  fervid  enthusiastic  mind  renders  little  accessible  to 
the  cold  solemnities  of  duty.  And,  finally,  if  we  are  insensi- 
ble to  the  grandeur  of  St.  Paul's  teaching  as  to  the  univer- 
sality of  the  Gospel,  it  is  not  more  because  it  is  entangled 
with  the  question  of  Jew  and  Gentile,  than  because  the  sen- 
timent has  become  the  common  atmosphere  of  Christendom, 
and  we  feel  not  its  freshness,  because  it  blows  not  on  us  as  a 
breeze,  but  only  as  our  breath  of  life.  Let  Mr.  Jowett  re- 
move from  us  the  spell  of  our  indifference. 

"  Let  us  turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  consider  how  great  this 
thought  was  in  that  age  and  country ;  a  thought  which  the 
wisest  of  men  had  never  before  uttered,  which  even  at  the 
present  hour  we  imperfectly  realize,  which  is  still  leavening 
the  world,  and  shall  do  so  until  the  whole  is  leavened,  and 
the  differences  of  races,  of  nations,  of  castes,  of  religions,  of 
languages,  are  fully  done  away.  Nothing  could  seem  a  less 
natural  or  obvious  lesson  in  the  then  state  of  the  world ; 
nothing  could  be  more  at  variance  with  experience,  or  more 
difficult  to  carry  out  into  practice.  Even  to  us  it  is  hard  to 
imagine  that  the  islander  of  the  South  Seas,  the  pariah  of 
India,  the  African  in  his  worst  estate,  is  equally  with  our- 
selves God's  creature.  But  in  the  age  of  St.  Paul,  how  great 
must  have  been  the  difficulty  of  conceiving  barbarian  and 
39* 


462  ST.   PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

Scythian,  bond  and  free,  —  all  colors,  forms,  races,  and  lan- 
guages, —  alike  and  equal  in  the  presence  of  God  who  made 
them !  The  origin  of  the  human  race  was  veiled  in  a  deep- 
er mystery  to  the  ancient  world,  and  the  lines  which  separat- 
ed mankind  were  harder  and  stronger ;  yet  the  '  love  of 
Christ  constraining'  bound  together  hi  its  cords  those  most 
separated  by  time  or  distance ;  those  who  were  the  types  of 
the  most  extreme  differences  of  which  the  human  race  is 
capable. 

"  The  thought  of  this  brotherhood  of  all  mankind,  the 
great  family  on  earth,  not  only  implies  that  all  men  have  cer- 
tain rights  and  claims  at  our  hands ;  it  is  also  a  thought  of 
peace  and  comfort.  First,  it  leads  us  to  rest  in  God,  not  as 
selecting  us  because  he  had  a  favor  unto  us,  but  as  infinitely 
just  to  all  mankind.  To  think  of  ourselves,  or  our  Church, 
or  our  age,  as  the  particular  exceptions  of  his  mercy,  is  not  a 
thought  of  comfort,  but  of  perplexity.  Secondly,  it  links  our 
fortunes  with  those  of  men  in  general,  and  gives  us  the  same 
support  in  reference  to  our  eternal  destiny,  that  we  receive 
from  each  other  in  a  narrow  sphere  in  the  concerns  of  daily 
life.  Thirdly,  it  relieves  us  from  all  anxiety  about  the  con- 
dition of  other  men,  of  friends  departed,  of  those  ignorant  of 
the  Gospel,  of  those  of  a  different  form  of  faith  from  our  own, 
knowing  that  God,  who  has  thus  far  lifted  up  the  veil,  '  will 
justify  the  circumcision  through  faith,  and  the  uncircumcision 
by  faith ' ;  the  Jew  who  fulfils  the  law,  and  the  Gentile  who 
does  by  nature  the  things  contained  in  the  law."  —  Vol.  II.  p. 
126. 

What  the  doctrine  of  universality  in  the  Divine  govern- 
ment was  to  that  age,  —  as  new  and  transporting,  —  is  in  our 
own  "  the  clear  perception  of  the  moral  nature  of  God,  and  of 
his  infinite  truth  and  justice."  This  is  one  of  the  many  deep 
sayings,  sad  and  wise,  quietly  dropped  by  our  author  in  a  se- 
ries of  disquisitions,  that  show,  among  other  things,  how  well 
he  understands  its  scope.  Everywhere  his  care  is  to  disengage 
Christianity  from  the  theological  conceptions  fastened  on  it  by 
a  coarser  age ;  and,  having  restored  the  purity  of  its  moral 


ST.  PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  463 

vision,  to  enlarge  its  horizon  to  the  whole  extent  of  modern 
knowledge  and  experience.  Penetrating  beneath  the  figures 
natural  to  St.  Paul,  the  very  changes  of  which  show  them 
to  be  figures,  he  finds  that  nothing  can  be  more  abhorrent 
from  the  Apostle's  thought  than  the  doctrine  of  "  satisfaction," 
which  is  hunted  down,  in  every  form,  with  exhaustive  and  in- 
dignant logic ;  that  even  the  analogy  of  sacrifice  "  rather 
shows  us  what  the  death  of  Christ  was  not,  than  what  it 
was  " ;  and  that  to  draw  us  into  union  with  Christ,  to  fix 
our  eye  on  his  pure  self-renunciation  as  "  the  greatest  moral 
act  ever  done  in  this  world,"  to  keep  us  in  a  mood  that  har- 
monizes our  trust  in  God  with  our  distrust  of  ourselves,  and 
to  suggest  more  than  it  can  explain  of  hope  and  peace  to  a 
reconciled  world,  are  the  real  functions,  as  of  his  death,  so  of 
all  the  stages  of  his  existence.  This  pure  type  of  faith  emer- 
ges, we  venture  to  affirm,  without  straining  the  rights  of  the 
interpreter.  The  rest  and  freedom  it  gives  to  the  mind  is 
singularly  evident  in  the  fine  essay  on  Natural  Religion. 
The  author  sets  forth  from  the  Christian  centre,  and,  conscious- 
ly marking  where  he  passes  the  boundary  of  the  apostolic 
view,  surveys  and  brings  to  its  religious  place  the  whole  out- 
lying realm  of  nature,  history,  and  life,  that  was  unknown  to 
Scripture,  but  is  fact  to  us.  The  great  Gentile  religions,  now 
discriminated  and  interpreted,  and  ascertained  to  follow  cer- 
tain laws  of  development ;  the  breadth  in  philosophies,  purer 
and  brighter  as  history  passed  on  ;  the  Natural  Religion, 
which  is  the  counterpart  of  these  in  Christian  times,  and  holds 
its  place  by  the  side  of  revelation  ;  and  the  ordinary  state  of 
character  in  morally  good  but  unspiritual  persons,  (state  of 
"nature"  rather  than  of  "grace,") — are  reviewed  and  esti- 
mated with  a  breadth  of  observation  and  a  delicacy  of  reflec- 
tion singularly  impressive.  Indeed,  the  literature  of  religious 
philosophy  affords  few  nobler  productions  than  this  essay. 
With  how  true  a  hand  and  bright  a  touch  is  the  following  pic- 
ture drawn !  We  will  but  hang  it  up  in  our  reader's  imagina- 
tion, and  leave  him  to  commune  with  it  alone. 

"  It  is  impossible  not  to  observe  that  innumerable  persons, 


464  ST.    PAUL    AND    HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS. 

—  may  we  not  say  the  majority  of  mankind  ?  —  who  have  a 
belief  in  God  and  immortality,  have  nevertheless  hardly  any 
consciousness  of  the  peculiar  doctrines  of  the  Gospel.  They 
seem  to  live  aloof  from  them  in  the  routine  of  business  or  of 
pleasure,  '  the  common  life  of  all  men,'  not  without  a  sense  of 
right,  and  a  rule  of  truth  and  honesty,  yet  insensible  to  what 
our  Saviour  meant  by  taking  up  the  cross  and  following  him, 
or  what  St.  Paul  meant  by  '  being  one  with  Christ.'  They 
die  without  any  great  fear  or  lively  hope ;  to  the  last  more 
interested  about  the  least  concerns  of  this  world  than  about  the 
greatest  of  another.  They  have  never  in  their  whole  lives 
experienced  the  love  of  God,  or  the  sense  of  sin,  or  the  need 
of  forgiveness.  Often  they  are  remarkable  for  the  purity  of 
their  morals ;  many  of  them  have  strong  and  disinterested 
attachments,  and  quick  human  sympathies  ;  sometimes  a  sto- 
ical feeling  of  uprightness,  or  a  peculiar  sensitiveness  to  dis- 
honor. It  would  be  a  mistake  to  say  they  are  without  relig- 
ion. They  join  in  its  public  acts  ;  they  are  offended  at  pro- 
faneness  or  impiety ;  they  are  thankful  for  the  blessings  of 
life,  and  do  not  rebel  against  its  misfortunes.  Such  men  meet 
us  at  every  turn.  They  are  those  whom  we  know  and  asso- 
ciate witij ;  honest  in  their  dealings,  respectable  in  their  lives, 
decent  iu  their  conversation.  The  Scripture  speaks  to  us  of 
two  classes,  represented  by  the  Church  and  the  world,  the 
wheat  and  the  tares,  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  the  friends  and 
enemies  of  God.  We  cannot  say  in  which  of  the  two  divis- 
ions we  should  find  a  place  for  them. 

"  The  picture  is  a  true  one,  and,  if  we  change  the  light  by 
which  we  look  at  it,  may  be  a  resemblance  of  ourselves  no  less 
than  of  other  men.  Others  will  include  most  of  us  in  the 
same  circle  in  which  we  are  including  them.  What  shall  we 
say  to  such  a  state,  common  as  it  is  to  both  us  and  them  ? 
The  fact  that  we  are  considering  is  not  the  evil  of  the  world, 
but  the  neutrality  of  the  world,  the  indifference  of  the  world, 
the  inertness  of  the  world.  There  are  multitudes  of  men  and 
women  everywhere  who  have  no  peculiarly  Christian  feelings, 
to  whom,  except  for  the  indirect  influence  of  Christian  insti- 


ST.   PAUL   AND   HIS    MODERN    STUDENTS.  465 

tutions,  the  fact  that  Christ  died  on  the  cross  for  their  sins  has 
made  no  difference  ;  and  who  have,  nevertheless,  the  common 
sense  of  truth  and  right  almost  equally  with  true  Christians. 
You  cannot  say  of  them,  '  There  is  none  that  doeth  good ;  no, 
not  one.'  The  other  tone  of  St.  Paul  is  more  suitable: 
'When  the  Gentiles  that  know  not  the  law  do  by  nature  the 
things  contained  in  the  law,  these  not  knowing  the  law  are  a 
law  unto  themselves.'  So  of  what  we  commonly  term  the 
world,  as  opposed  to  those  who  make  a  profession  of  Chris- 
tianity, we  must  not  shrink  from  saying,  '  When  men  of  the 
world  do  by  nature  whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatso- 
ever things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report, 
these,  not  being  conscious  of  the  grace  of  God,  do  by  nature 
what  can  only  be  done  by  his  grace.'  Why  should  we  make 
them  out  worse  than  they  are  ?  We  must  cease  to  speak  evil 
of  them  ere  they  will  judge  fairly  of  the  characters  of  relig- 
ious men.  That,  with  so  little  recognition  of  His  personal  re- 
lation to  them,  God  has  not  cast  them  off,  is  a  ground  of  hope 
rather  than  of  fear,  —  of  thankfulness,  not  of  regret." —  Vol. 
II.  p.  416. 


SIN:  WHAT  IT  IS,  WHAT  IT  IS  NOT. 


"  Now  the  end  of  the  commandment  is  Charity,  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of 
a  good  conscience,  and  of  faith  unfeigned."  —  1  Timothy  i.  5. 

THE  Apostle  gives  us  here  a  very  simple  formula  of 
Christian  perfection.  He  was  not  fond  of  long  lists  of  the 
virtues,  such  as  the  moral  philosophers  draw  up ;  and  though 
he  does  sometimes  pass  through  a  series,  it  is  with  a  peculiar 
result.  Look  at  any  book  upon  human  ethics,  and  you  are 
astonished  at  the  number  of  qualities  that  go  to  make  up  a 
good  man  :  the  ramifications  of  duty  seem  never  to  terminate  : 
you  scarcely  know  how  a  soul  like  ours  can  hold  so  much : 
the  further  the  author  proceeds  in  his  enumeration,  the  less 
does  he  seem  able  to  stop,  —  his  divisions  breaking  into  sub- 
divisions, and  the  subdivisions  opening  new  varieties,  —  till 
life  appears  to  pulverize  itself  under  his  definitions,  and  be- 
come an  infinite  complexity  of  moral  detail.  St.  Paul's  enu- 
merations, on  the  contrary,  instead  of  running  down  into 
multitude,  run  up  into  unity ;  each  term  is  apt  to  be  larger 
than  its  predecessor ;  he  seems  impatient  of  scattering  his 
exhortations,  as  if  each  had  a  business  of  its  own,  and  rather 
forces  them  as  he  proceeds  into  denser  compression,  till  he 
flings  out  some  term  of  power  that  holds  them  all.  The 
graces  with  him  do  not  present  themselves  apart,  like  garden 
plants  that  may  be  tended  and  watered  one  by  one ;  but  all 
on  the  same  organism,  as  the  leaves  and  the  blossoms  of  a 
single  shrub.  He  felt  that  in  reality  the  virtues  do  not  add 
themselves  up  and  subscribe  to  the  final  result  of  a  holy  soul : 


SIN:     WHAT   IT    IS,    WHAT   IT    IS    NOT.  467 

but  the  one  simple  soul  lives  itself  out  into  the  direction  of 
all  the  virtues ;  and  there  is  a  certain  mood,  a  temper,  a 
climate  of  the  soul,  which  grows  everything  beautiful  at  once, 
and  without  which,  while  one  adornment  is  elaborately  nursed, 
the  rest  will  be  apt  to  droop  and  die.  This  blessed  and  pro- 
ductive mood,  felt  to  be  one  thing,  ought  to  have  one  name  : 
and  the  Apostle  calls  it  Charity  or  Love ;  and  presents  it 
sometimes  as  the  greatest  of  graces,  sometimes  as  the  unity 
of  them  all. 

But  this  simple  grace  is  to  have  a  triple  source.  In  the 
midst  of  the  garden  of  the  Lord  the  Apostle  plants  but  a  sol- 
itary tree  of  life,  —  his  divine  and  fruitful  Charity.  Only  it 
must  be  nursed  by  the  threefold  root,  of  which  should  any 
part  be  wanting,  the  beauty  of  the  form  and  the  healing  of 
the  leaves  will  soon  be  gone.  "  Charity  out  of  a  pure  heart, 

—  and   a   good   conscience,  —  and   faith   unfeigned."      The 
Heart,  the  Conscience,  the  Faith,  must  all  be  right ;  and  it  is 
no  Pauline  Charity  that  is  not  sustained  by  concurrence  of 
them  all.     And,  observe  the  order.     In  the  centre,  striking 
its  fibres  deepest  down  into  the  substance  of  our  world,  is  the 
Conscience,  the  Moral  element  of  life ;  and  on  either  side, 
held  to  their  due  balance  by  its  intermediate  power,  we  find 
the  Heart,  —  the  fresh  human  affections,  —  and  the  Faith,  — 
the  heavenly  trust  and  aspirations,  —  of  our  nature.     Ten- 
derness and  pity  on  the  one  hand,  devotion  and  hope  on  the 
other,  are  to  hold  on  to  the  sense  of  duty  in  the  midst ;  and 
there  only  will  a  noble  and  majestic  Love  arise,  casting  no 
baneful  shade  upon  the  earth,  and  in  its  branches  giving  no 
shelter  but  to  birds  that  sing  the  songs  of  heaven.     A  charity, 
therefore,  that  flows  only  from  the  genial  heart,  that  looks 
with  kindly  complacency  on  all  things  and  persons,  and  with 
a  sort  of  animal  sympathy  licks  every  sore  of  humanity  that 
lies  at  its  gate ;  —  this  is  not  the  "  end  of  the  commandment " ; 

—  for  it  has  in  it  no  moral,  no  religious  element :  it  condemns 
nothing ;  it  worships  nothing :  its  eye  neither  flashes  in  re- 
buke, nor  lifts  itself  in  prayer:  it  is  sensitive  to  suffering,  not 
to  sin :  and,  if  it  can  but  wipe  out  pain,  will  do  it  even  upon 


468  SIN:    WHAT  IT  is,  WHAT  IT  is  NOT. 

guilty  terms,  and  charm  away  a  God-sent  remorse  as  freely 
as  it  would  an  anguish  of  the  innocent.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  charity  that  flows  only  from  the  sincerity  of  faith, 
and  limits  itself  to  the  fellowship  of  belief ;  that  feels  perhaps 
for  many,  but  only  with  a  few ;  whose  warmest  sympathies 
are  little  else  than  a  partnership  of  antipathies ;  that  transfers 
to  the  infinite  God  the  narrowness  of  its  own  consecrated 
circle,  reduces  the  universe  to  a  temple  of  orthodoxy,  and 
turns  the  Heaven  of  Immortals  into  the  May-meeting  of  a 
sect ;  —  this  also  misses  "  the  end  of  the  commandment  "  :  for 
it  abuses  the  true  power  of  religion  over  life,  and  flings  in  the 
branch  of  faith  only  to  embitter,  instead  of  sweeten,  the  waters 
of  natural  affection ;  it  blinds  and  bewilders  the  moral  dis- 
cernment, overlooks  undeniable  nobleness,  and  glorifies  not  a 
little  meanness  ;  and,  applying  its  perverted  admiration  to  the 
past  as  well  as  the  present,  crowds  the  statue-gallery  of  his- 
tory with  ill-favored  and  questionable  saints,  whose  features 
have  so  grown  to  the  mould  and  pressure  of  a  creed,  that 
they  look  like  casts  of  an  abstract  theology,  more  than  em- 
blems of  a  living  humanity.  Take  away  the  wisdom  of  Con- 
science ;  and  Charity,  surrendered  to  mere  affection,  will  fail 
to  see  sin  where  it  is  ;  or,  constricted  by  Faith,  will  suppose 
it  where  it  is  not.  Both  errors  will  shape  themselves  into 
deliberate  doctrines,  deviating  on  either  side  from  the  simple 
creed  of  our  moral  nature  and  of  Christ.  Let  us  look  for  a 
few  moments  at  the  central  truth  on  this  matter ;  and  then 
glance  from  it  at  the  lateral  heresies. 

The  central  truth  may  be  described  under  the  phrase,  The 
Personal  nature  of  sin.  In  affirming  this,  I  mean  both  that 
each  man  is  a  person,  and  not  a  thing  ;  and  that  his  sin  is  his 
own,  and  not  another's.  If  there  is  anything  within  the  com- 
pass of  heaven  and  earth  which  we  can  be  said  to  know  from 
ourselves,  and  to  have  no  need  that  another  should  tell  us,  it 
is  the  nature  of  sin.  There  is  no  arrogance,  —  there  is  only 
sorrowful  confession,  —  in  protesting  that  this  is  a  matter  on 
which  we  cannot  be  mistaken.  It  is  the  nearest  of  all  things 
io  us ;  the  shadow  that  follows  us  where  we  go,  and  stays 


SIN:    WHAT    IT    IS,    WHAT    IT    IS   NOT.  469 

with  us  when  we  sit ;  the  clinging  presence  that  penetrates 
the  very  folds  of  our  nature,  and  is  known  only  from  within, 
where  its  fibres  strike  and  draw  their  nutriment.  No  external 
observer,  though  he  have  the  divination  of  a  prophet  or  the 
glance  of  an  archangel,  can  add  one  iota  to  our  insight  into 
this  sad  fact,  unless  by  sharpening  our  sensibility  to  feel  and 
interpret  it  better  for  ourselves ;  or  by  any  testimony,  any 
miracle,  take  one  line  away  of  the  handwriting  of  God  that 
burns  and  flashes  on  the  inner  walls  of  the  soul.  Here  at 
least  our  apprehensions  are  first-hand ;  and  to  trust  them,  to 
cast  out  as  Satan  what  tampers  with  them  or  contradicts  them, 
is  not  scepticism,  but  faith,  —  not  infidelity,  but  faithfulness 
to  the  ever-living  Word  of  God.  What  the  finger  of  Heaven 
has  written,  neither  the  tapestries  of  ancient  theology  nor  the 
varnish  of  the  newest  philosophy  can  permanently  hide  ;  the 
light  is  alive,  and  will  eat  through,  clearing  its  everlasting 
•warning  and  consuming  our  perishable  work. 

What  then  does  this  first  and  last  revelation  declare  human 
sin  to  be  ?  In  the  moments  when  we  know  it  best,  —  when  we 
cover  our  face  because  we  can  hide  our  transgression  no  more, 

—  when  we  cannot  bear  the  placid  silence  of  things,  and  cry  in 
our  agony,  "  Smite  us,  O  Lord,  but  tell  us  what  we  have  done," 

—  does  He  not  answer  us,  "You  have  abused  your  trust; 
I  showed  you  a  better,  and  you  have  taken  the  worse  ;  I  drew 
you  by  a  secret  reverence  to  the  nobler,  and  you  have  sunk 
by  inclination  to  the  baser ;  I  gave  you  a  will  in  the  image 
of  my  own,  free  to  realize  the  good,  and  you  have  yielded 
yourself  captive  to  the  evil;  therefore   have  you  a   burden 
now  to  bear,  that  none  can  lift  off,  —  a  burden  which  you 
will  feel  it  more  faithful  and  wholesome  to  carry  than  to  lose." 
This  is  surely  the  tone  in  which  the  voice  of  God's  Holy  Spirit 
speaks  to  us  when  we  have  grieved  it :  and  if  we  believe  it 
not,  I  know  not  whither  we  should  go;    it  is  the  highest 
oracle  of  truth  below  the  skies,  having  authority  more  posi- 
tive even  than  the  eye  that  assures  us  of  the  sun  above  us, 
and  the  feet  that  tell  us  of  the  earth  beneath. 

According  to  this  oracle,  then,  the  essence  of  the  sin  lies  in 
40 


470  SIN:    WHAT    IT    IS,    WHAT    IT    IS    NOT. 

the  conscious  free  choice  of  the  worse  in  presence  of  a  better  no 
less  possible.  And  to  make  us  guilty  in  its  commission  three  con- 
ditions are  required  ; —  (1.)  Our  mind  must  be  solicited  by  at 
least  two  competing  propensities  ;  (2.)  We  must  be  aware  that 
of  these  one  is  worthy  and  has  a  claim  upon  us,  and  the  other 
not ;  (3.)  It  must  be  left  to  us  to  determine  ourselves  to  either 
of  these,  and  we  must  not  be  delivered  over  by  foreign  causes 
to  the  one  or  to  the  other.  Take  away  any  of  these  condi- 
tions, and  guilt  becomes  impossible.  If  the  mind  has  not  the 
option  of  two  propensities,  but  is  possessed  of  only  one,  that 
single  impulse,  being  its  entire  stock  and  constituting  its  only 
possibility,  affords  no  scope  for  good  or  ill,  and  leaves  the 
being  a  mere  creature  of  instinct.  Or  if,  while  rival  passions 
struggle  at  his  heart,  he  knows  no  difference  among  them,  or 
only  this,  that  some  are  pleasanter  than  others,  then  also  he 
is  blameless,  though  he  takes  only  what  he  likes.  If,  finally, 
while  he  is  drawn  by  conflicting  tendencies  and  taught  to 
regard  some  as  his  temptations,  and  solemnly  set  in  the  midst 
to  choose,  the  whole  appearance  of  option  turns  out  a  sem- 
blance and  a  pretence,  and  the  matter  is  long  ago  determined 
outside  of  him  and  now  only  performs  the  ceremony  of  pass- 
ing through  him,  —  then,  as  before,  he  is  irreproachable  :  the 
strife  within  him  is  the  illusion  of  mimic  passions  wrestling 
for  a  dreamer's  soul ;  and  while  the  tragic  agony  goes  on 
within,  —  a  dance  of  fiends,  a  rescue  of  angels,  —  he  is 
stretched  all  the  while  sleeping  on  the  bed  of  nature,  and 
cannot  wake  but  to  find  remorse  and  responsibility  a  dream. 
Accordingly,  whenever  we  want  to  make  excuse  for  our 
wrong-doing,  the  false  plea  takes  the  form  of  a  denial  of  one 
of  these  conditions.  "  Blame  me  not,"  we  say,  "for  I  knew  of 
no  other  course " ;  or,  "  I  did  not  think  it  signified  which  I 
did"  ;  or,  "  I  saw  it  all,  but  I  could  not  help  it"  Often  the 
gnawings  of  self-reproach  are  felt  upon  the  heart  at  the  very 
instant  that  these  excuses  escape  the  lips.  But  sometimes 
they  are  the  suggestions  of  sincere  self-deception,  and  proceed 
from  men  who  are  their  own  dupes  :  and  whenever  this  is  the 
case,  the  sense  of  responsibility  is  entirely  dissipated  ;  remorse 


SIN:    WHAT    IT    IS,    WHAT    IT   IS    NOT.  471 

is  extinguished ;  the  confession  of  guilt  is  turned  into  com- 
plaint of  a  misfortune;  and  the  offender  considers  himself 
rather  as  the  injured  of  nature  than  the  insurgent  against 
God.  These  excuses  then  must  be  wholly  excluded,  if  the 
sanctity  of  the  moral  life  is  to  be  preserved.  They  are  the 
various  forms  under  which  the  personal  nature  of  sin  may  be 
denied.  They  all  assert  that  the  person  either  did  not  con- 
tain within  him  the  requisite  conditions,  or  was  hemmed  in 
by  natural  preventives,  of  true  obligation.  Whoever  offers 
us  such  pleas  is  justly  regarded  as  self-condemned,  and  in- 
deed as  presenting  a  sadder  spectacle  in  his  defence  than  in 
his  transgression.  Nor  are  they  improved  in  their  character 
when  they  are  expanded  from  excuses  of  individuals  into 
doctrines  of  churches  ;  for  they  explain  away  the  essence  of 
sin,  and  leave  us  without  intelligible  faith  in  anything  holy 
in  heaven  or  on  earth.  Thus :  — 

Whoever  maintains  that  the  human  heart  is  invariably 
wicked,  and  can  think  no  thought  and  prompt  no  act,  except 
such  as  are  odious  to  God,  mistakes  the  whole  nature  of 
moral  obligation,  and  virtually  excludes  it  from  the  entire 
system  of  things.  Confront  this  assertion  with  the  facts  of 
life,  and  ask  what  it  really  means.  Do  you  mean,  I  would 
say  to  its  defender,  that,  whenever  two  principles  contend  for 
the  mastery  in  a  man's  mind,  he  always  abandons  himself 
to  the  lower  ?  —  that  no  one,  in  short,  was  ever  known  to  resist 
a  temptation  ?  Such  a  position  is  surely  too  bold  for  the  par- 
adox of  cynicism  itself,  in  a  world  where  there  are  many  in 
want  that  do  not  steal,  and  in  suffering  that  do  not  complain; 
where  a  Pericles  could  administer  the  revenues  of  a  state, 
yet  die  without  having  added  to  his  little  patrimony;  and  a 
Socrates  could  live  pure  amid  corruption,  and  truthful  amid 
lies,  and  die  the  martyr  of  injustice  rather  than  offend  his 
reverence  for  law  ;  where  not  a  school  nor  a  family  can  be 
found  that  has  not  its  annals  and  anecdotes  of  conscience. 
You  allow,  therefore,  that  victors  there  have  been  in  many  a 
temptation.  Did  it  make  then  no  difference  to  the  sentiments 
of  God  respecting  them  whether  they  were  victors  or  van- 


472  SIN:  WHAT  IT  is,  WHAT  IT  is  NOT. 

quished?  Was  it  neutral  to  him  whether  they  nobly  held 
their  post,  or  basely  betrayed  it  ?  Then  you  simply  deny  the 
holiness  of  God  ;  for  you  allow  the  greatest  contrasts  of  char- 
acter on  earth,  with  no  responsive  feeling,  no  variety  of  esti- 
mate, in  heaven ;  and  make  our  human  discernment,  our 
natural  admirations,  more  susceptible  as  moral  barometers 
than  the  Omniscient  Perception.  Or  will  you  say  that,  al- 
though men  differ  in  moral  effort,  and  withstand  temptation 
in  various  degrees,  and  the  Infinite  Eye  sees  through  the 
whole  history  with  unerring  exactitude,  yet  the  entire  scale  of 
human  character  lies  below  the  point  of  Divine  acceptable- 
ness,  and  in  the  view  of  perfect  purity  is  equivalent  to  mere 
variety  of  guilt?  Then  do  you  deny  again,  only  with  a 
change  of  form,  the  personal  nature  of  sin ;  for  you  try  the 
soul  by  the  law  of  another  nature,  and  not  her  own,  —  by  a 
law  beyond  her  ken  or  beyond  her  power ;  and  while  she  is 
striving  to  be  faithful  to  her  best  thought  against  the  seduc- 
tions of  the  worse,  —  in  which  alone  the  essence  of  all  goodness 
dwells,  —  you  tell  her  that  her  God  despises  a  conflict  so  far 
doAvn,  and  that  "  this  people  that  knoweth  not  his  law,"  how- 
ever true  to  their  own,  "  is  cursed."  What  is  this  but  to 
make  Moral  Excellence  something  quite  different  in  heaven 
and  on  earth  ?  —  not  veracity,  not  justice,  not  purity  of  thought, 
not  self-sacrificing  love ;  nothing  that  here  makes  our  hearts 
burn  within  us  as  we  look  at  the  dear  face  of  long-tried 
friends  or  saintly  strangers,  or  leaving  the  Jerusalem  of  the 
noisy  present  pace  the  quiet  road  of  history,  talking  by  the 
way  with  the  saviours  of  nations  and  the  prophets  of  a 
world ;  —  not  this,  but  some  hidden  charm  that  finds  neither 
place  nor  answer  in  our  souls  ;  so  that  the  God  who  loves  it 
leaves  us  herein  without  a  point  of  sympathy  with  him,  or  a 
possibility  of  approach.  In  that  case,  he  is  a  Being  without 
moral  perfection  ;  for,  however  you  may  apply  to  him  a  circle 
of  holy  names,  the  things  you  denote  by  them  are  a  set 
of  unknown  quantities  bearing  no  relation  to  our  types  of 
thought.  Or,  finally,  do  you  allege  that  the  distinctions  of 
character  are  not  entirely  different  in  heaven  and  on  earth  j 


SIN:  WHAT  IT  is,  WHAT  IT  is  NOT.  473 

only  that  through  all  their  varieties  in  the  natural  man  there 
is  interfused  a  certain  invariable  taint,  an  irremovable  tinge 
of  guilt,  —  a  stain  of  self,  a  thought  of  pride,  a  want  of  faith? 
Even  were  it  so,  still,  if  this  be  the  constant  coloring  of  the 
soul,  pervading  it  by  nature  and  not  personally  incurred,  it  is 
but  a  sad  condition  under  which  it  is  given  us  to  work  out 
our  problem,  and  not  any  unfaithfulness  in  dealing  with  it  as 
it  comes  :  it  is  an  inherent  incapacity,  which,  however  unlike 
the  beauty  of  God's  holiness,  he  can  no  more  regard  with 
penal  disapproval,  than  he  can  hate  the  deformed  or  persecute 
the  blind. 

Again,  whoever  teaches  that  men  are,  through  and  through, 
the  creatures  of  circumstance,  with  no  more  voice  as  to  their 
character  than  as  to  their  birth,  but  are  the  predestined  pro- 
ducts of  nature,  working  partly  within  them  and  partly  with- 
out, —  no  less  surely  insults  all  moral  convictions,  and  denies 
the  reality  of  duty.  For  he  abolishes  entirely  the  distinction 
between  a  person  and  a  thing ;  and  conceives  of  every  man 
as  a  mere  growth  or  development  from  the  physiology  of  the 
universe,  no  more  responsible  for  his  place  in  the  scale  of 
excellence,  than  the  plant  which,  according  to  its  seed  and 
soil,  becomes  the  hyssop  of  the  wall,  the  lily  of  the  field,  or 
the  stately  cedar  of  Lebanon.  All  moral  ideas  vanish  in- 
stantly at  the  touch  of  this  doctrine  ;  and  the  solemn  language 
on  which  Law  and  Conscience  have  stamped  their  venerable 
impress,  and  ruled  among  the  nations  "  by  the  grace  of  God," 
is  defaced  in  the  revolutionary  mint  of  fatalism,  and  made 
current  with  the  superscription  of  a  pretended  equality  where 
all  are  low,  and  liberty  where  none  is  free.  It  is  quite  clear, 
that,  if  the  soul  has  no  originating  causality,  but  in  every  step 
she  takes  is  simply  disposed  of  and  beppokan  by  agencies 
provided  and  set  in  train,  without  any  question  asked  of  her, 
she  can  have  no  duties,  she  can  win  no  deserts ;  she  can 
incur  no  guilt,  merit  no  punishment ;  she  is  deluded  in  her 
remorse,  and  suffers  a  vain  orture  in  esteeming  herself  an 
alien  from  God.  All  that  remains  is  this :  that  by  natural 
laws  there  may  be  pain  consequent,  and  known  to  be  conne- 
40* 


474  SIN:  WHAT  IT  is,  WHAT  IT  is  NOT. 

quent,  on  some  of  the  directions  which  we  may  take  ;  and  it 
is  at  our  peril  that  we  enter  on  these  paths.  But  so  is  it  at 
our  peril  if  we  go  up  in  a  balloon,  or  put  to  sea  in  a  small 
boat  to  save  a  drowning  crew.  You  can  get  nothing  out  of  this 
consideration  but  more  or  less  of  Prudence  ;  hope  of  happi- 
ness, fear  of  suffering,  can  consecrate  nothing  as  a  J)uty,  but 
only  present  it  as  interest  ;  and  if  a  man  chooses  to  disregard 
his  interest  and  risk  the  result,  I  know  not  who,  in  heaven 
or  earth,  can  tell  him  with  authority  that  he  has  no  right  to 
do  it,  or  can  say  more  to  him  than  that  he  is  a  fool  in  his 
folly.  Who  on  these  terms  could  cast  himself,  in  tears  of 
penitence,  upon  the  bosom  of  Infinite  Mercy,  and  sob  out  his 
prayer  that  he  might  be  reconciled  to  God  ?  Who  would 
ever  tremble  beneath  the  lash  of  a  fiery  reproach,  and  own, 
as  it  quivered  over  him,  that  there  was  justice  in  the  terror 
of  its  look  ?  Rather  must  the  sinner  feel  himself  the  victim 
of  a  cruel  doom  ;  whom  it  is  as  little  suitable  to  punish,  as  to 
chastise  the  patient  hi  fever,  or  torture  the  cripple  in  the 
street.  A  doctrine  which  reduces  duty  to  interest,  retribu- 
tion to  discipline,  guilt  to  disease,  holiness  to  symmetry  and 
good  health,  and  God  to  the  neutral  source  of  all  things  good 
and  ill ;  —  which  frightens  us  with  fears  we  may  defy,  but 
awes  us  with  no  authority  we  can  revere ;  which  pities  iniqui- 
ty and  smiles  on  goodness,  but  only  in  order  to  patronize  en- 
joyment ;  —  whose  faith  in  human  nature  is  a  reliance  on  the 
ultimate  docility  of  the  wild  animal  man ;  and  whose  worship 
of  God  is  taken,  like  a  morning  walk,  for  the  sake  of  exer- 
cise ; — is  so  alien  from  the  whole  spirit  of  religion,  and  such  an 
affront  to  the  first  instincts  of  conscience,  that  it  can  only  es- 
cape indignant  condemnation  by  withdrawing  altogether  into 
the  sphere  of  natural  history,  and  quitting  as  a  foreign  prov- 
ince the  domain  —  whose  language  it  corrupts  —  of  Morals 
and  of  Faith. 

Finally,  those  who  teach  that  guilt  and  merit,  with  their 
penalties  and  rewards,  can  be  transferred,  deny  hi  the  direct- 
est  way  the  personal  nature  of  Sin.  That  men  should  find  a 
foreign  remedy  for  their  perpetrated  wickedness,  is  not  less 


SIN:  WHAT  IT  is,  WHAT  IT  is  NOT.  475 

shocking  than  that  they  should  trace  it  to  a  foreign  source.  If 
they  know  what  it  is  at  all,  they  feel  it  to  be  inalienably  their 
own ;  which  none  could  give  them  and  which  none  can  take 
away.  And  nothing  is  more  amazing  than  that  good  Chris- 
tians, who  seem  truly  cast  down  in  humiliation,  oppressed  with 
the  sense  of  their  short-comings,  penetrated  with  the  sadness 
of  baffled  aspiration,  —  and  who  therefore,  one  would  think, 
must  really  have  a  consciousness  of  the  personality  of  sin, 
and  know  how  it  is  chargeable  only  on  their  individual  will,  — 
can  yet  obtain  relief  by  flying,  as  it  is  said,  to  the  cross,  and 
persuading  themselves  that  the  evil  has  been  stayed  and  cured 
by  transactions  wholly  outside  themselves,  and  belonging  to 
the  history  of  another  being.  What  can  possibly  be  meant 
by  the  statement  that  Christ  has  borne  the  punishment,  some 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  of  your  sins  and  mine, — of  people 
non-existent  then,  and  therefore  non-sinful  ?  Can  the  punish- 
ment precede  the  sin  ?  Can  it  be  inflicted  and  gone  through 
before  it  is  even  determined  whether  the  sin  will  be  perpetrat- 
ed at  all  ?  Or  can  merely  potential  sin,  which  may  never  be- 
come actual,  be  dealt  with  at  ages  distant,  and  its  accounts  be 
settled  ere  it  arise  ?  If  so,  what  is  the  death  of  Christ  but  the 
provisory  accumulation  of  a  fund  beforehand,  ready  to  be 
drawn  upon  as  the  everlasting  "  treasure  of  the  Church,"  for 
the  free  discharge  of  guilty  debts  and  the  release  of  divine 
obligations  ?  And  in  what  respect  does  this  differ  from  the 
Roman  Catholic  doctrine,  —  except  that  the  treasure  is  at  the 
discretion  of  no  chartered  sacerdotal  company,  but  is  open  on 
more  popular  and  looser  terms  ? 

Moral  relations,  by  their  very  nature,  exclude  all  vicari- 
ous agency ;  you  cannot  fall,  you  cannot  recover,  by  deputy : 
the  ill  that  haunts  you  is  the  insult  you  have  put  on  the  divine 
spirit  in  your  heart,  and  it  is  as  if  you  were  alone  with  God. 
An  interposing  medium  can  as  little  divert  the  retribution,  sis 
it  can  intercept  the  complacency  of  the  Infinite  and  Holy 
Mind.  What  more  fearful  charge  could  you  bring  against 
any  government,  than  to  say  that  its  penalties  may  be  l>ought 
off?  A  judge  who  accepts  the  voluntary  sufferings  of  inno- 


476  SIN:    WHAT    IT   IS,    WHAT    IT   IS    NOT. 

cence  in  acquittance  of  the  liabilities  of  guilt,  shocks  every 
sentiment  of  justice,  and  does  that  which  the  worst  judicial 
caprice  would  never  dare  to  imitate.  A  law  that  does  not 
care  whether  the  right  persons  feel  its  retribution,  provided  it 
gets  an  equivalent  suffering  elsewhere,  is  an  affront  to  the 
most  elementary  notions  of  right.  And  an  offender  who  can 
welcome  his  escape  by  such  device,  permits  his  moral  percep- 
tions to  be  blinded  by  personal  gratitude,  and  is  content  to 
profit  by  a  transaction  which  it  would  fill  him  with  remorse 
to  repeat  upon  his  own  children. 

A  Mediator  may  do  much  indeed  to  reconcile  my  alienated 
mind  to  God.  He  may  personally  rise  before  me  with  a  pu- 
rity and  greatness  so  unique  as  to  give  me  faith  in  diviner 
things  than  I  had  known  before,  and  by  his  higher  image  turn 
my  eye  towards  the  Highest  of  all.  He  may  show  me  how, 
in  the  sublimest  natures,  sanctity  and  tenderness  ever  blend, 
and  so  touch  the  springs  of  inward  reverence  that,  in  my  re- 
turning sympathy  with  goodness,  all  abject  and  deterring  fears 
are  swept  away.  He  may  direct  upon  me,  from  the  hall  of 
trial  or  the  cross  of  self-sacrifice,  the  loving  look  that  pros- 
trates the  impulses  of  passion  and  the  power  of  self,  and  awak- 
ens the  repentant  enthusiasm  of  nobler  affections.  He  may 
renew  my  future ;  but  he  cannot  change  my  past.  He  may 
sprinkle  my  immediate  soul  with  the  wave  of  regeneration  ; 
but  he  cannot  drown  the  deeds  that  are  gone.  From  present 
sinfulness  he  may  recover  me ;  but  the  perpetrated  sins  — 
though  he  be  God  himself  in  power,  unless  he  be  other  than 
God  in  holiness  —  he  cannot  redeem.  These  have  become 
realized  facts ;  and  none  can  cut  off  the  entail  of  their  conse- 
quences :  whatever  the  Divine  Law  has  avowedly  annexed  to 
them  will  develop  itself  from  them  with  infallible  certainty. 
The  outward  sufferings  by  which  God  has  stamped  into  the 
nature  of  things  his  disapprobation  of  sin,  and  made  it  griev- 
ous here  and  hereafter,  stand  irrevocably  fast,  clinging  to 
guilt  as  shadow  to  body,  as  effect  to  cause.  This  debt  of  nat- 
ural penalty  is  one  which  must  be  paid  to  the  utmost  farthing ; 
by  penitent  and  impenitent,  by  the  reconciled  and  the  unrec- 


SIN:    WHAT   IT   IS,   WHAT   IT   IS   NOT.  477 

onciled  alike :  miracle  cannot  cancel,  nor  mediator  discliarge 
it.  In  this  sense,  —  of  rescue  from  the  penal  laws  of  God,  — 
I  know  of  no  remission  of  sins ;  nor  would  Christians  have 
retained  so  heathenish  a  notion,  had  they  not  frightfully  ex- 
aggerated, in  the  first  instance,  the  retributions  of  God  by 
making  them  an  eternal  vengeance;  and  so  created  a  neces- 
sity for  again  rescinding  the  fierce  enactments  of  their  fancy, 
that  hope  and  return  might  not  be  quite  shut  out.  It  is  only 
in  man,  however,  and  not  in  God,  thus  to  do  and  undo.  His 
word,  whether  of  warning  or  of  promise,  is  Yea  and  Amen  •, 
and  his  great  realities  will  march  serenely  on,  and,  heedless  of 
our  passionate  deprecations  and  fictitious  triumphs,  rebuke 
our  unbelief  of  their  veracity. 

But  while  the  past  can  never  be  as  though  it  were  not,  the 
present  may  lie  hi  the  shelter  of  reconciliation,  and  the  future 
in  the  light  of  boundless  hope.  The  outer  burden  we  have 
incurred  we  may  still  have  to  bear ;  but  once  brought  by 
Divine  conversion  to  an  inner  sympathy  with  God,  and  see- 
ing by  his  light  rather  than  our  own,  we  can  suffer  our 
wounds  with  a  patient  shame,  and  scarcely  feel  their  anguish 
more.  The  averted  face  of  the  Infinite  has  turned  round  up- 
on us  again ;  and  the  pure  eyes  look  into  us  with  a  mild  and 
loving  gaze,  which  we  can  meet  with  answering  glance,  and 
feel  that  we  are  at  one  with  the  universe  and  reconciled  with 
God. 


PEACE  IN  DIVISION:  THE  DUTIES  OF  CHRIS- 
TIANS IN  AN  AGE  OF  CONTROVERSY. 


"  Suppose  ye  that  I  am  come  to  give  peace  on  earth?    I  tell  you,  nay,  but 
rather  division."  —  Luke  xii.  51. 

SUCH  was  the  account  which  the  Saviour  himself  gave  of 
a  religion  whose  promise  was  hailed  by  angels  as  an  occasion, 
not  only  of  "  glory  to  God  in  the  highest,"  but  of  "  peace  on 
earth,  and  good-will  to  men."  The  contradiction  between  the 
two  passages  is  so  obviously  merely  of  a  verbal  nature,  that 
it  can  perplex  only  the  blind  interpreter  who  penetrates  no 
further  than  the  letter  of  the  sacred  volume.  I  should  only 
be  giving  utterance  to  your  own  spontaneous  reflections,  my 
friends,  were  I  to  tell  you  that  my  text  speaks,  not  of  the  de- 
sign, but  of  the  consequence,  of  the  dissemination  of  the  Gos- 
pel ;  and  that  it  indicates  no  more  than  a  prophetic  knowledge 
on  the  part  of  Christ  of  the  diversities  of  sentiment  and  feel- 
ing which  would  spring  from  the  diffusion  of  his  religion. 
This  prophetic  knowledge,  however,  it  does  clearly  indicate ; 
and  this  is  a  fact  of  no  mean  importance.  The  unbeliever 
objects  to  Christianity,  and  the  Roman  Catholic  to  Protestant- 
ism, the  endless  catalogue  of  discordant  opinions  which  have 
resulted  from  their  prevalence ;  and  to  both  we  are  furnished 
with  one  reply.  This  infinite  diversity  indicates  no  failure  in 
our  system ;  it  is  not  an  unexpected  effect  which  startles  and 
alarms  us ;  it  was  foreseen  by  the  Author  of  our  religion,  and 
announced  by  him  as  the  necessary  consequence  of  the  genu- 
ine preaching  of  his  Apostles.  And  though  he  had  this  evil 


PEACE   IN    DIVISION.  479 

(if  such  it  be)  full  in  view,  he  did  not  retreat  from  the  office 
he  had  assumed,  nor  feel  it  at  variance  with  his  deep  and  ten- 
der philanthropy,  to  implant  among  mankind  a  faith  that 
should  break  up  their  united  mass  into  a  thousand  repulsive 
groups. 

He  must  then  have  known  that  his  Gospel  would  carry 
with  it  blessings  which  this  seeming  disadvantage  would  not 
cancel,  —  blessings  far  surpassing  the  evils  of  division,  —  a 
peace  which  no  jarrings  of  controversy  could  disturb,  —  a  good- 
will that  could  triumph  over  the  alienations  of  party.  Were 
it  my  object,  it  would  be  easy  to  show  that  the  distribution  of 
the  Christian  world  into  sects  has  achieved  incalculably  more 
good  than  it  has  inflicted  injury ;  that  the  rudest  conflicts  of 
a  militant  theology  are  preferable  to  the  hollow  peace  of  uni- 
versal thraldom;  that  the  fluctuating  surface  of  human  opin- 
ion, with  all  its  restless  lights,  is  a  fairer  object  than  its  dark 
and  leaden  stagnation ;  that  discussion  multiplies  the  chances 
of  truth,  diffuses  the  thirst  for  knowledge,  leads  forth  reason 
from  the  mist,  converts  prejudice  into  conviction,  and  gives  to 
a  dead  faith  a  moral  and  operative  power.  It  would  be  easy 
to  show  that  our  religion,  especially  since  it  has  issued  from  the 
cloister  into  the  light  of  day,  has  accomplished  a  vast  amount 
of  good,  with  which  no  controversy  has  been  able  to  interfere; 
that  it  has  imparted  nobler  sentiments  of  duty,  given  to  con- 
science a  more  majestic  voice,  raised  the  depressed  portions  of 
society;  that  it  has  enabled  moral  refinement  to  keep  pace 
with  the  intellectual  advancement  of  mankind;  that  it  lias 
given  modesty  to  the  sublimest  exercise  of  reason,  by  erecting 
towering  and  eternal  truths  beyond  whose  shadow  reason  can- 
not fly.  It  would  be  easy  to  anticipate  the  time  when  the  be- 
nign principles  of  Christianity  shall  mellow  down  the  rugged- 
ness  of  party  feeling,  and  extract  the  lingering  selfishness  that 
poisons  discussion  with  its  bitterness ;  when  the  unrestricted 
and  disinterested  love  of  truth  shall  no  longer  be  an  empty 
fiction ;  when  the  differences  between  mind  and  mind  will  be 
but  so  many  converging  paths  by  which  mankind,  with  one 
heart  and  one  speed,  hasten  to  the  same  goal  of  certainty. 


480  PEACE   IN   DIVISION. 

But  it  is  not  my  object  to  insist  on  the  advantages  of  contro- 
versy, or  to  predict  its  future  triumphs ;  but  rather  to  warn 
against  some  of  its  dangers,  and  to  suggest  a  few  thoughts 
which  may  throw  light  on  the  duties  of  Christians  in  an  age 
so  controversial  as  ours.  To  me,  reflecting  on  the  principles 
of  the  Association  at  whose  anniversary  I  speak,  no  topic 
seems  more  appropriate.  Our  grand  uniting  principle  is,  the 
rejection  of  all  creeds  and  human  formularies  of  faith,  and  a 
simple  adherence  to  the  sacred  volume,  as  being  "  able,"  with- 
out comment  or  interpretation,  "  to  make  wise  unto  salvation." 
We  think  confessions  enough  have  been  tried,  and  been  found 
wanting ;  that  every  such  attempt  to  produce  uniformity  is  ut- 
terly chimerical,  and  an  impotent  rebellion  against  the  laws  of 
the  human  mind.  Believing  then  that  unanimity  is  one  of  the 
weakest  dreams  of  the  visionary  and  the  fanatic,  we  expect  to 
see  diversity  of  sentiment  among  Christians ;  we  cannot  be 
surprised,  and  ought  not  to  be  displeased,  to  see  the  religious 
world  full  of  the  activity  of  discussion.  But  since  we  agree 
to  abandon  mankind  to  their  divergencies  of  opinion,  it  is  pe- 
culiarly incumbent  on  us  to  consider  what  new  moral  aspect 
society  assumes,  when  distributed  into  differing  denominations, 
and  what  new  duties  arise  in  an  age  of  doctrinal  debate. 

I.  It  is  the  duty  of  Christians  to  remember  how  many  are 
their  points  of  union. 

Is  our  religion,  my  friends,  a  matter  of  the  intellect  only,  — 
a  mere  mine  of  inexhaustible  speculation  ?  I  grant  that  it  is 
in  perfect  unison  with  the  dictates  of  enlightened  reason,  and 
that  it  administers  the  noblest  stimulus  and  worthiest  employ- 
ment to  the  faculties  of  the  mind.  But  are  not  its  ultimate 
dealings  with  the  affections  ?  Does  it  not  present  to  us  new 
objects  of  love,  new  scenes  of  hope,  a  new  system  of  desires  ? 
Does  it  not  unlock  the  springs  of  human  feeling,  and  pour  the 
full  tide  of  emotion  upon  the  soul  ?  What  else  can  so  melt  in 
penitence,  so  solemnize  with  awe,  so  prostrate  in  fear,  so  en- 
kindle with  joy  ?  What  else  can  impart  such  majestic  power 
to  human  will  to  trample  in  the  dust  peril  and  anguish  and 


PEACE    IN   DIVISION.  481 

temptation,  to  conquer  the  solicitations  of  self-love,  and  pursue 
with  meek  inflexibility  deserted  and  solitary  ways  of  duty  ? 
For  the  greatest  triumphs  of  our  faith  we  must  go  where  it 
is  matched  with  the  passions  of  the  heart,  the  impulses  of  un- 
regulated nature,  and  see  how  it  prunes  their  exuberance, 
enriches  their  sterility,  purifies  their  pollutions,  expands  their 
littleness,  refines  their  ruggedness.  Now  these  influences  are 
common  to  every  form  of  Christianity ;  its  appeals  to  the  af- 
fections are  not  uttered  in  the  vocabulary  of  sectarianism,  but 
in  the  universal  language  of  the  human  heart.  Some  may 
prefer  to  deck  the  form  of  our  religion  in  the  gorgeous  colors 
of  an  imposing  ritual ;  some  may  throw  round  it  the  ample 
folds  of  mystery ;  others  may  love  rather  the  grace  of  its  prim- 
itive simplicity ;  but  beneath  all  these  varieties  the  same  living 
figure  breathes,  the  same  radiant  features  smile.  Where  is  the 
system  of  Christianity  that  does  not  present  to  our  affections 
an  Infinite  Being,  who  has  shadowed  forth  his  invisible  glories 
in  the  splendors  of  the  universe,  who  rolls  the  silent  wheels  of 
time,  whose  presence,  felt  in  other  worlds,  is  secretly  shed 
around  each  human  home,  who  traces  the  tear  of  grief  and 
lights  up  the  smile  of  peace,  who  has  an  eye  on  every  heart, 
and  carries  on  his  parental  discipline  in  scenes  beyond  our  vis- 
ion and  without  an  end?  Where  is  the  system  of  Christiani- 
ty which  does  not  lead  us  to  the  Saviour  as  the  image  of  the 
invisible  God,  as  the  bright  reflection  of  his  character,  and  the 
noblest  assurance  of  his  love,  —  which  does  not  trace  to  Jesus 
innumerable  moral  blessings,  and  call  us  to  reverence  him  for 
guidance  amid  the  intricacies  of  duty,  for  light  in  the  chamber 
of  grief,  for  power  of  endurance  amid  the  struggles  of  suffer- 
ing nature,  and  prospects  of  attractive  grandeur  beyond  the 
grave  ?  Where  is  the  system  of  Christianity  which  does  not 
cast  upon  this  state  the  shadow  of  an  eternal  tribunal,  —  which 
does  not  associate  with  sin  the  horrors  of  the  outer  darkness, 
and  impart  an  infinite  value  to  every  pure  tendency  of  the 
soul,  by  inviting  virtue  to  a  never-ending  progression  replete 
with  ineffable  joy  ?  What  Christian  has  not  enshrined  in  his 
memory  and  his  admiration  the  most  beautiful  and  touching 
41 


482  PEACE    IN   DIVISION. 

portions  of  the  volume  of  our  faith  ?  Is  there  a  Christian 
parent  that  can  read  the  invitation  of  the  benevolent  Jesus, 
"  Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not," 
without  a  heart  of  love  to  the  Heavenly  Teacher,  without  a  pu- 
rified conception  of  that  kingdom  which  infantine  docility  alone 
can  enter,  without  an  uplifting  of  prayer  that  no  rude  world 
may  ever  brush  from  the  mind  of  his  child  the  morning  dews 
of  his  innocence?  Is  there  a  Christian  sister  that  has  not 
blessed  the  Divine  Teacher,  who,  himself  touched  by  the  sor- 
rows that  he  quelled,  restored  the  lost  Lazarus  to  his  weeping 
and  defenceless  home  ?  Is  there  a  Christian  mother  who  has 
not  lingered  with  the  bereaved  Mary  around  the  cross,  won- 
dered at  her  awful  sorrows,  and  thought  how  in  the  watches 
of  the  night  memory  would  bring  back  upon  her  ear  that  last 
appeal,  "  Woman,  behold  thy  son  "  ?  The  tears  which  flow  at 
passages  like  these,  the  admiration  with  which  they  burden  the 
heart,  the  images  of  moral  loveliness  with  which  they  fill  the 
imagination,  are  not  the  exclusive  possession  of  any  sect ;  they 
are  the  unrestricted  boon  of  God  to  the  human  soul.  In  pri- 
vate, then,  we  all  ponder  the  same  book,  gather  from  it  the 
same  refreshing  influence,  the  same  impressions  of  duty,  the 
same  impulses  to  prayer.  And  on  our  Christian  Sabbath, 
while  we  tread  the  threshold  of  differing  temples,  are  they  not 
all  dedicated  to  Him  "  who  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with 
hands,"  and  regardeth  not  their  trivial  distinctions?  While 
the  worshipping  multitudes  utter  a  various  language  and  ill- 
harmonizing  thoughts,  are  they  not  addressing  a  Being  to 
whom  language  is  but  a  breath,  and  human  thought  but  like 
an  infant's  dream,  and  who  looks  only  to  that  heart  of  love 
that  animates  them  both  ?  It  is  an  exhilarating  thought,  that 
though  on  that  sacred  day  Christians  may  be  separated  by 
land  and  seas,  gathered  around  myriads  of  sanctuaries,  and 
speaking  in  a  thousand  tongues,  their  praises  blend  like  kin- 
dred fires  as  they  rise,  and  burst  into  the  courts  of  God,  one 
brilliant  flame  of  incense  from  the  universal  shrine  of  the  hu- 
man heart. 

These,  my  fellow-Christians,  are  thoughts  which  we  should 


PEACE    IN    DIVISION.  483 

cherish,  to  convince  us  how  much,  amid  all  our  diversities,  we 
have  in  common ;  to  show  us  that  the  best,  the  living  portion 
of  our  faith,  is  others'  as  well  as  our  own ;  and  to  soften  those 
strange  animosities  that  embitter  our  weak  tempers,  and  en- 
feeble the  heavenly  ties  that  encircle  the  whole  family  of  God. 
If  there  be  any  truth  in  the  remark  of  a  philosopher,  that  the 
essence  of  friendship  is  to  have  the  same  desires  and  aversions, 
how  much  ground  have  all  Christians  for  mutual  love  !  Wide- 
ly as  their  speculations  may  diverge,  the  great  concern  of  all 
is  with  God,  the  Infinite  Father;  with  Christ,  the  commis- 
sioned prophet,  the  merciful  redeemer,  the  inspired  teacher, 
the  perfect  model,  the  heavenly  guide ;  with  eternity,  the  seat 
of  our  deepest  and  most  permanent  interests,  the  receptacle  of 
our  lost  friends,  the  grave  of  virtuous  sorrow,  the  home  of  the 
tossed  and  faithful  spirit.  No  one  can  live  habitually  under 
the  influence  of  these  grand  and  affecting  objects,  and  turn 
from  them  to  condescend  to  the  littleness  of  a  polemical  tem- 
per. They  will  impart  their  own  greatness  to  his  soul,  and 
give  him  that  best  of  powers,  —  the  power  over  himself.  Such 
a  one  may  use  the  pen  of  controversy  without  fear. 

II.  But  I  confess  that  the  contemplation  of  these  points  of 
union  would  impart  little  peace  to  our  minds,  or  serenity  to 
our  tempers,  if  at  the  same  time  we  believed  that  the  differ- 
ences of  our  faith  would  follow  us  into  the  eternal  future,  and 
determine  our  condition  there.  I  therefore  observe,  in  the 
second  place,  that,  amid  all  our  controversies,  it  is  of  moment 
that  we  should  remember  the  moral  innocence  of  mental  error. 
This  principle,  my  friends,  seems  to  me  to  be  intimately  con- 
nected with  our  right  of  private  judgment.  We  might  claim 
for  men  the  privilege  of  free  investigation,  and  affix  no  tem- 
poral rewards  or  punishments  to  any  system ;  yet  tlu's  would 
be  but  a  worthless  boon,  if  we  upheld  over  any  creed  the  pe- 
nal menace  of  eternity.  We  should  thus  only  transfer  the 
bribe  from  men's  interests  to  their  fears  ;  we  should  push  our 
exclusion  from  earth,  only  to  give  it  a  vaster  theatre  in  heav- 
en. As  many  Christians,  not  otherwise  disposed  to  be  narrow 


484  PEACE    IN    DIVISION. 

in  their  spirit,  have  some  lingering  doubts  respecting  this  pri- 
mary principle  of  Christian  charity,  suffer  me  to  say  a  few 
words  with  a  view  to  establish  the  perfect  innocence  of  men- 
tal error.  The  exclusionist  rests  the  burden  of  his  argument 
on  one  text,  which,  unhappily  for  Christian  love,  has  been  left 
somewhat  elliptical  in  its  expression.  "  He  that  believeth  and 
is  baptized,  shall  be  saved ;  he  that  believeth  not,  shall  be 
damned."  Believeth  what?  Transubstantiation,  says  the 
Catholic ;  miraculous  conversion,  says  the  Wesleyan ;  the 
vicarious  atonement,  replies  the  Calvinist;  the  Trinity,  says 
the  Athanasian  Creed.  Every  one  has  an  anathema  for  the 
opponent  of  his  favorite  tenet ;  and  the  still,  small  voice  of 
charity  is  swept  away  by  the  conflicting  winds  of  controversy, 
and  dies  unheard.  Let  us  see  whether  our  Heavenly  Father 
will  not  permit  us  to  open  those  gates  of  mercy  which  others 
have  so  sternly  closed. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  our  present  purpose  to  inquire  what 
are  the  salvation  and  condemnation  of  which  the  passage  in 
question  speaks.  It  may  be  conceded  without  injury  to  our 
argument,  that  they  have  reference  to  the  destinies  of  a  future 
world.  Every  reader  of  Scripture  will  acknowledge  that  the 
unbelief  which  our  Saviour  menaces,  is  unbelief  in  his  Gos- 
pel, as  preached  by  his  Apostles,  and  confirmed  by  visible  mir- 
acles ;  —  it  is  a  rejection  of  Christianity.  From  this  it  would 
seem  clear,  that  no  form  under  which  the  religion  of  Christ  is 
professed,  however  erroneous  it  may  be,  can  be  comprised 
within  the  sentence  of  condemnation.  But  the  argument  of 
the  exclusionist  is  this :  —  My  own  system  is,  in  my  view,  the 
only  one  that  is  identical  with  the  Gospel ;  therefore  I  must 
believe  that  those  who  reject  my  system  are  exposed  to  the 
penalties  annexed  to  the  rejection  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  sur- 
prising that  so  many  should  fail  to  detect  the  fallacy  of  this 
reasoning.  Compare  the  case  which  our  Saviour  is  supposing 
with  that  of  the  man  who,  in  preferring  one  profession  of 
Christianity,  rejects  all  others ;  and  you  will  find  that  there 
are  two  most  momentous  points  of  distinction,  —  the  motive  of 
the  rejecter  is  different,  and  the  thing  rejected  is  different. 


PEACE    tN    DIVISION.  485 

What  can  be  more  obvious,  than  that  our  Saviour  refers  to 
the  hearer's  intentional  rejection  of  the  Gospel,  —  a  rejection 
of  his  own  Christianity,  not  of  his  neighbor's.  When  punish- 
ment is  held  forth  as  the  consequence  of  any  act,  is  it  not  al- 
ways implied  that  the  act  must  be  intentional  ?  Is  it  not  an 
understood  principle  of  every  law,  human  and  divine,  that  a 
deed  of  accident  and  inadvertence  is  exempted  from  the  pen- 
alties which,  were  it  designed,  it  would  deserve?  To  con- 
demn for  murder  the  man  who  through  mistake  should  admin- 
ister a  poisonous  draught  for  a  restorative,  would  be  as  just  as 
to  put  the  erring  believer  and  the  wilful  unbeliever  on  the 
same  level.  To  charge  this  enormous  immorality  on  God, 
would  be  the  height  of  impiety.  Widely  as  the  professing 
Christian  may  err,  remote  as  his  faith  may  be  from  the  truth 
as  it  is  in  Jesus,  his  intent  is  to  believe ;  he  yields  his  assent, 
no  less  heartily  than  his  wiser  brother,  to  the  evidence  which 
God  has  placed  before  him;  he  only  mistakes  what  it  is 
which  that  evidence  proves ;  he  reverences,  no  less  than 
others,  the  authority  which  Jesus  claims  ;  but  he  does  not  dis- 
cern all  the  truths  which  that  authority  establishes.  Strange 
would  it  be,  brethren,  if  God,  who  in  all  other  cases  look- 
fili  at  the  heart,  should  in  this  look  at  the  understanding 
only. 

But  perhaps  it  will  be  urged  that  the  same  perversion  of 
jaind  which  Jesus  condemns  is  displayed  by  the  modern  in- 
quirer, who  does  not  discern  in  the  Gospel  the  great  essentials 
f  f  Christianity ;  that  his  disbelief  in  them,  in  short,  is  not 
wholly  involuntary.  A  few  words  to  this  objection. 

I  admit  that  faith  is  a  compound  result  of  the  will  and  the 
understanding ;  connected  indeed  most  obviously  with  the  lat- 
ter, but  determined  more  remotely  by  causes  having  their  seat 
ivi  the  former.  In  the  process  of  investigation,  the  last  step, 
of  weighing  arguments  and  making  up  the  mind,  is  undoubt- 
edly involuntary.  When  the  evidence  is  once  placed  before 
the  inquirer,  no  energy  of  will  can  repel  the  conclusion  which 
is  forced  upon  the  judgment.  When,  however,  we  perceive 
that  the  very  same  reasoning  produces  different  results  oil  dif- 
41* 


486  PEACE    IN   DIVISION. 

ferent  persons,  that  one  man  is  forcibly  impressed  by  an  ar- 
gument which  to  another  appears  weak  and  worthless,  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  account  for  these  varieties  in  the  effects  of 
evidence.  And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  perception  of 
truth  is  very  materially  influenced  by  the  moral  condition  of 
the  mind.  How  powerful  are  the  arguments  in  favor  of  the 
Gospel  derived  from  the  moral  beauty  and  symmetry  of  the 
system,  from  the  originality  and  loftiness  of  our  Saviour's 
character,  from  the  adaptation  of  his  religion  to  the  wants  of 
the  human  mind  under  all  its  countless  varieties !  And  yet 
this  species  of  evidence  will  be  wholly  without  effect  on  those 
whose  minds  are  destitute  of  moral  sensibility  and  refinement. 
Moreover,  it  is  notorious  that  the  sanguine  are  always  apt  to 
believe  what  they  hope,  the  timid  what  they  fear ;  and  the 
hopes  and  fears  of  conscience  will  exert  this  influence  on  be- 
lief no  less  than  any  other.  Prejudice  which  might  be  con- 
quered, indolence  which  ought  to  be  shaken  off,  passions 
which  blind  and  corrupt  the  judgment,  uneasy  conscience 
which  alienates  the  desires  from  God,  all  these  may  exercise 
a  powerful  moral  sway  over  the  faith ;  and  for  the  influence 
of  these  every  man  is  certainly  accountable. 

But  at  the  same  time  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  God 
has  created  us  with  intellectual  differences  which  are  wholly 
involuntary,  and  which  must  tend  to  fix  the  determinations  of 
the  judgment.  There  are  some  men  who,  from  their  earliest 
years,  seem  incapable  of  admitting  a  truth  without  double  the 
evidence  with  which  others  would  be  satisfied.  Who  then 
among  us  is  to  determine  what  mind  is  most  correctly  strung  ? 
Is  the  man  who  admits  a  proposition  on  one  degree  of  evi- 
dence to  condemn  his  brother  who  requires  two  ?  And  is  it 
credible  that  God  will  accept  of  none  but  him  whom  he  has 
himself  placed  at  the  only  true  point  in  the  gradation  ?  Im- 
possible !  As  well  might  we  say  that  his  heaven  is  closed 
against  the  insane  or  the  deformed. 

It  appears  then,  my  friends,  that  belief  flows  from  causes 
partly  moral,  partly  intellectual.  But  can  any  human  eye,  I 
ask,  discern  in  what  proportion  they  are  mingled  in  any  one's 


PEACE    IN   DIVISION.  487 

faith  ?  Dare  you  say  of  your  differing  brother,  that  he  differs 
from  a  prevailing  depravity  of  heart,  and  not  from  constitu- 
tional causes  ?  If  not,  then  is  there  no  human  tribunal  to 
which  opinion  may  be  called.  We  are  not  forbidden  to  love 
any  fellow-creature,  however  remote  his  views  from  ours.  As 
we  are  unable  to  discover  how  far  diversities  of  sentiment  flow 
from  the  will,  we  are  bound  to  treat  them  all  as  if  they  were 
entirely  involuntary,  and  to  leave  to  the  Searcher  of  hearts 
the  award  of  approbation  or  displeasure. 

Again,  the  faith  rejected  in  the  case  which  our  Lord  con- 
demns, is  not  the  same  that  is  renounced  by  the  erring  Chris- 
tian. What  is  the  Christianity,  the  disbelief  of  which  is  pro- 
nounced by  Jesus  to  be  so  dangerous  ?  Is  it  the  Christianity 
of  Luther,  of  Calvin,  of  Arius,  of  Wesley  ?  No,  but  the 
Christianity  of  the  Apostles,  which  they  were  "  to  preach  to 
every  creature."  Now  in  this  all  professing  Christians  be- 
lieve ;  and  from  it  they  derive  those  views  which,  when  once 
severed  from  their  origin  and  entering  the  province  of  human 
reason,  so  rapidly  diverge  from  each  other.  It  is  in  vain  to 
urge  that  all  these  systems,  contradictory  as  they  are,  cannot 
coincide  with  revelation ;  and  that  there  must,  therefore,  be 
some  that  do  not  constitute  Christianity.  The  Gospel  itself, 
considered  as  a  revelation,  bears  the  same  relation  to  all  the 
rival  creeds  whose  credit  hangs  on  its  authority ;  like  the  beam 
of  the  balance,  which  determines  the  scale  neither  way.  Let 
me  not  be  mistaken,  my  friends.  I  mean  not  to  say  that  all 
systems  of  Christian  faith  are  equally  true,  or  equally  accord- 
ant with  the  sacred  writings ;  but  that  their  relative  truth  is 
undetermined  by  the  authority  of  revelation,  and  dependent 
on  the  correctness  of  the  reasoning  by  which  they  are  deduced 
from  Scripture.  All  begin  with  reverencing  the  Gospel ;  and 
this  screens  them  from  our  Saviour's  condemnation.  They 
then  employ  themselves  in  reasoning  on  the  sacred  writings 
that  lie  before  them ;  and  if  they  then  separate  from  each 
other,  it  is  through  the  same  fallibility  of  mind  which  multi- 
plies opinions  on  other  subjects,  and  for  which  assuredly  God 
will  bring  no  man  into  judgment.  The  various  systems  of 


488  PEACE    IN    DIVISION. 

Christian  faith  are  but  the  diverging  streams  which  flow  from 
the  fountain  of  living  waters :  some  may  take  a  straighter, 
others  a  more  devious  way ;  some  may  receive  a  scantier, 
others  a  more  copious  admixture  from  a  different  source  ;  some 
may  roll  over  a  purer,  others  over  a  fouler  bed ;  but  all  con- 
tain the  healing  current  which  gushed  from  the  smitten  rock, 
and  all,  I  doubt  not,  are  bearing  onwards  to  meet  at  last  in  the 
ocean  of  eternal  rest 

Why  then,  my  brethren,  must  we  be  handling  terrors  which 
it  is  not  ours  to  distribute,  and  sending  forth  into  the  dark 
these  fearful  guesses  at  judgment?  Why  must  our  feeble 
hand  be  playing  with  the  lightning,  and  letting  loose  the  hur- 
ricane ?  Rather  let  us  imitate  God.  Does  he  brand  the  her- 
etic with  his  curse  ?  Does  he  pour  the  elements  in  fury 
around  his  dwelling  ?  Does  he  set  a  mark  on  him,  that  any 
one  finding  him  may  slay  him  ?  See,  the  sunshine  still  smiles 
upon  his  roof;  the  shower  still  refreshes  his  field ;  the  chari- 
ties and  hopes  of  life  are  still  poured  upon  his  heart.  And 
cannot  we  cheer  with  our  human  love  the  creature  whom  our 
Father  disdaineth  not  to  bless  ?  Are  we  so  sinless  as  to  stand 
apart  in  our  holiness  from  the  being  with  whom  the  Majesty 
of  heaven  can  condescend  to  dwell,  whom  Infinite  Purity  stoops 
to  cherish  ?  At  least  let  us  wait  for  the  disclosure  of  those 
secret  counsels  which  we  dare  to  scan.  It  will  be  time 
enough  to  hate  when  God  condemns,  to  shun  when  God  driv- 
eth  away.  Be  assured,  my  brethren,  no  soul  ever  perished 
for  too  much  charity.  "  Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  as  your 
Father  in  heaven  is  perfect." 

III.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  Christian  in  an  age  of  contro- 
versy to  make  an  open,  undisguised  statement  of  his  opinions, 
and  of  the  evidence  which  satisfies  him  of  their  truth.  How 
seldom  do  you  see  that  union  of  com*age  and  charity  which 
the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  should  impart !  Here  you  find  one 
who  discovers  nothing  in  the  religion  of  his  brethren  but 
errors  to  controvert ;  who  cannot  perceive  any  Christianity 
beyond  the  peculiarities  of  his  own  creed,  and  thinks  that  all 


PEACE    IN    DIVISION.  489 

the  evils  of  society  are  to  be  traced  to  the  opinions  of  which 
he  has  discerned  the  fallacy.  There,  on  the  other  hand,  is  one 
who,  without  perceiving  the  difference  between  discussion  and 
wrangling,  entertains  a  foolish  dread  of  all  controversy,  and, 
as  if  the  mutual  good-will  of  mankind  depended  on  their  uni- 
formity of  faith,  suppresses  his  own  views,  and  melts  down 
the  distinctions  which  separate  them  from  the  views  of  others. 
The  enlightened  Christian  will  acknowledge  that  both  these 
are  in  the  extreme.  Against  the  exclusive  spirit  of  the  for- 
mer the  preceding  part  of  this  discourse  may  be  a  sufficient 
remonstrance  ;  and  I  will  conclude  with  a  few  remarks  in  ref- 
erence to  the  latter.  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  fear  of 
making  an  open  profession  of  faith  is  a  not  unnatural  fruit  of 
the  despotism  with  which  society  persecutes  those  who  deviate 
from  its  established  modes  of  thinking.  A  vast  machinery  of 
refined  intimidation  is  prepared,  to  awe  down  every  rising 
spirit  that  seeks  to  emerge  from  the  thraldom  of  authorized 
custom  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God.  The 
charge  of  singularity,  the  smile  of  wonder,  the  sneer  of  aris- 
tocratical  derision,  the  cold  recoil  of  suspicion,  and  the  open 
upbraidings  of  bigotry,  are  the  keen  weapons  by  which  the 
world  hastens  to  assault  the  conscientious  openness  which  it 
ought  to  hail  and  venerate.  Assailed  by  so  many  enemies,  it 
is  little  wonder  that  the  weak  and  timid  should  fall  into  that 
"  fear  of  man  which  bringeth  a  snare  "  ;  and  that  this  should 
often  lead  them  to  act  where  they  should  keep  aloof,  and  to 
be  passive  where  they  should  act ;  to  speak  when  they  should 
be  silent,  and  oftener  to  be  silent  when  they  should  speak ;  to 
think  within  the  barriers  of  established  rules,  or,  when  more 
convenient,  not  to  think  at  all.  But  however  natural  may  be 
the  origin  of  this  accommodating  flexibility  in  the  intolerance 
of  society,  it  receives  no  justification  hence ;  it  is  utterly  in- 
compatible with  that  Christian  simplicity  which  is  ever  the 
same  to  men  and  to  God,  which  unfolds  the  character  to  the 
view  in  harmonious  proportion,  and  would  scorn  to  appear 
other  than  it  is.  It  can  exist  only  in  the  mind  that  loves  the 
praise  of  men  more  than  the  praise  of  God. 


PEACE   IN   DIVISION. 

I  cannot  leave  this  concluding  part  of  my  subject,  without 
remembering  that  I  am  animadverting  on  a  fault  which  has 
been  peculiarly  charged  on  my  own  sacred  profession.  The 
ministers  of  the  Gospel,  it  has  been  said,  the  very  men  who 
should  live  under  the  constant  eye  of  God,  have  ever  afforded 
the  most  signal  examples  of  the  fear  of  man.  My  brethren, 
I  confess  it  with  shame :  and  it  is  a  truth  to  which  I  can 
never  revert  without  feelings  of  indignant  sorrow.  Happily 
there  have  been  many  noble  exceptions,  and  in  this  place  it 
is  not  difficult  to  bring  many  before  the  view.  But  the  more 
I  read  the  past  records  of  the  Church,  and  the  more  I  study 
its  secret  history  at  the  present  day,  the  more  painfully  strong 
is  my  conviction  that  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  have  been 
the  most  temporizing  class  of  men.  They  are  the  appointed 
investigators  of  sacred  truth,  employed  expressly  for  the  pur- 
pose of  opening  the  treasuries  of  divine  wisdom  and  knowl- 
edge ;  and  yet  from  none  has  society  gained  fewer  accessions 
of  truth  and  light.  Though  stationed  by  their  office  between 
heaven  and  earth,  they  have  gathered  upon  their  souls  more 
influences  from  below  than  from  above  ;  though  ordained  to 
declare  the  whole  counsel  of  God,  they  have  more  often 
studied  the  taste  than  the  wants  of  their  hearers  ;  though  en- 
circled in  the  discharge  of  their  duties  by  an  arm  almighty  to 
uphold,  they  too  have  felt  afraid.  My  beloved  friends,  I  know 
not  how  it  appears  to  others,  but  to  me  it  seems  that  in  the 
whole  Christian  code  there  is  not  a  duty  of  more  clear  and 
paramount  obligation  than  the  honest,  simple  avowal  of  Chris- 
tian truth.  The  first  natural  dictate  of  the  mind  is  to  speak 
what  it  thinks  on  any  subject  of  deep  interest  and  importance ; 
and  I  am  persuaded  that  a  man  must  sophisticate  his  con- 
science, must  fill  his  judgment  with  forced  reasoning  and  false 
excuses,  before  he  can  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  had  bet- 
ter keep  truth  to  himself.  Do  you  ask  me,  "  What  is  truth  ? 
Amid  the  conflicting  sentiments  of  mankind,  how  is  it  possi- 
ble with  confidence  to  take  up  any  as  exclusively  just  ?  "  I 
answer,  every  man's  own  convictions  to  him  are  truth,  to  him 
are  Christianity ;  and  that  to  conceal  them  is  to  act  the  part 


PEACE   IN   DIVISION.  49l 

of  the  wicked  and  slothful  servant  who  buried -his  master's 
talent  in  the  earth.  It  signifies  not  that  men  may  obtain  ac- 
ceptance with  God  without  thinking  as  you  think ;  God  for- 
bid that  I  should  for  a  moment  doubt  that !  But  do  you  be- 
lieve that  truth  is  better  for  man  than  error  ?  Do  you  believe 
that  they  are  not  both  alike  to  his  mental  and  moral  condi- 
tion ?  If  so,  it  is  selfishness,  it  is  sinful  exclusion,  to  wrap 
yourself  up  in  the  solitary  enjoyment  of  your  own  convictions. 
For  my  part,  I  see  nothing  but  hypocrisy  in  the  elaborate  at- 
tempts which  are  sometimes  put  forth,  to  make  opinions  look 
like  popular  creeds,  by  slurring  over  grand  points  of  distinc- 
tion, by  pushing  forward  apparent  resemblances,  by  a  dexter- 
ous use  of  ambiguous  phrases,  and  other  arts  equally  worthy 
of  a  Christian's  scorn.  Indeed,  my  fellow-Christians,  we 
ought  never  to  be  content  till  this  great  principle  has  been 
established, — that,  in  obeying  the  noble  law  of  Christian  open- 
ness and  sincerity,  it  is  not  the  business  of  the  human  being 
to  calculate  consequences  at  all;  that  temporal  expediency 
must  in  no  degree  enter  into  the  consideration.  God  is  the 
author  of  truth,  and  he  will  take  care  of  its  consequences ; 
and  I  am  well  satisfied  that,  let  appearances  be  what  they 
may,  honesty  will  bring  after  it  nothing  but  good.  Even  sup- 
pose that  we  should  be  found  to  be  in  error :  then,  the  sooner 
it  is  exposed  the  better ;  and  nothing  is  so  likely  to  lead  to 
its  exposure  as  the  undisguised  publication  of  its  evidence. 
"  Opinion  in  good  men,"  it  has  been  beautifully  remarked,  "  is 
but  knowledge  in  the  making  " ;  and  it  is  by  sifting  the  grounds 
on  which  opinions  rest,  by  bringing  them  into  close  compari- 
son, and  setting  many  minds  to  work  upon  them,  that  truth  is 
at  length  elicited ;  and  he  is  no  enlightened  lover  of  truth, 
who  is  an  enemy  to  the  avowal  of  opinion.  It  is  to  be  la- 
mented that  the  world  has  been  so  successful  in  circulating 
the  feeling,  even  among  the  well-meaning  of  mankind,  that 
there  can  be  anything  to  be  ashamed  of  in  opinion  ;  for  hence 
has  arisen  an  association  of  fear,  and  almost  of  conscious  guilt, 
with  one  of  the  noblest  and  first  duties  of  the  mind,  the  duty 
of  thinking  for  itself.  Let  the  inquirer  and  the  teacher  keep 


492  fEACE    IN   DIVISION. 

their  eye  steadily  fixed  upon  the  Scriptures,  make  it  their 
single  object  to  know  and  to  communicate  what  they  contain ; 
let  them  utterly  forget  that  there  are  any  inspectors  of  their 
conduct,  any  listeners  to  their  words,  except  God  and  their 
own  conscience ;  and  I  am  satisfied  that  truth  and  charity  will 
spread  together,  and  more  union  be  produced  among  the  now 
widely  dissevered  portions  of  the  Christian  world,  than  any 
timid  mediators,  striving  to  be  all  things  to  all  men,  will  ever 
be  able  to  effect.  The  alarmed  reconciler  of  inconsistencies 
may  seem  for  a  while  to  be  successful ;  he  may  keep  together 
in  temporary  harmony  those  dissimilar  elements  which  more 
fearless  spirits  might  separate;  he  may  persuade  men  that 
they  agree  when  they  are  wide  as  the  poles  asunder; 
he  may  surround  himself  by  numbers,  and  multiply  the  di- 
rections in  which  his  immediate  influence  extends.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  reformer  who  cannot  conceal,  and  who  dare 
not  pretend,  who  interprets  most  strictly  the  law  of  Christian 
simplicity,  may  lose  many  supporters  who  ought  to  stand  by 
him  in  the  hour  of  trial ;  he  may  be  looked  on  with  suspicion 
and  avoided  as  dangerous ;  he  may  be  the  centre  at  which  a 
thousand  weapons  are  directed ;  he  may  seem  to  have  been 
imprudent  and  premature,  and  to  have  baffled  his  own  cause 
by  his  indiscreet  openness ;  he  may  go  down  to  the  evening 
termination  of  his  labors,  accompanied  only  by  a  faithful  few, 
and  cheered  by  no  multitude  of  approving  voices.  But  wait 
till  a  generation  has  passed  away,  and  then  come  and  look 
into  the  field  occupied  by  these  two  laborers.  Then  you  will 
find  it  proved  that  numbers  are  not  always  strength ;  when 
gathered  together  by  the  feeble  bond  of  private  influence, 
they  are  scattered  when  that  influence  is  withdrawn.  The 
timid  man  has  left  no  permanent  trace  behind  him ;  he  has 
inspired  no  courage,  provided  no  security  for  the  future,  and 
the  grass  has  grown  over  the  road  that  leads  to  his  temple. 
But  the  man  who  has  not  feared  to  tell  the  whole  truth  is 
remembered  and  appealed  to  by  succeeding  generations ;  his 
name,  pronounced  in  his  lifetime  with  reproach,  becomes  a 
familial-  term  of  encouragement ;  his  thoughts,  his  spirit,  long 


£EACE   IN   DIVISION.  493 

survive  him,  gather  together  new  and  more  powerful  advo- 
cates, and  are  associated  with  the  records  of  imperishable 
truth. 

Finally,  the  great  evil  of  this  disposition  is,  that  it  con- 
strains the  natural  action  of  the  mind,  and  produces  a  weak 
vacillation  of  character  which  paralyzes  every  virtuous  en- 
ergy. The  grand  secret  of  human  power,  my  friends,  is  sin- 
gleness of  purpose ;  before  it,  perils,  opposition,  and  difficulty 
melt  away,  and  open  out  a  certain  pathway  to  success.  But 
alas !  brethren,  our  Christianity  has  not  taken  from  us  the 
spirit  of  fear,  and  given  us  in  its  place  the  spirit  of  power, 
and  of  love,  and  of  a  sound  mind.  We  still  put  duty  to  the 
vote.  We  shrink  from  being  singular,  even  in  excellence 
forgetting  how  many  things  are  customs  in  heaven  which 
are  eccentricities  on  earth.  We  fix  our  eye,  now  on  the 
tempting  treasures  below,  then  on  the  half-veiled  glories 
above ;  we  open  our  ears,  now  to  the  welcome  tones  of  human 
praise,  then  to  the  accents  of  God's  approving  voice ;  and  in 
the  vain  attempt  to  reconcile  opposing  claims,  we  sacrifice  our 
interest  in  both  worlds.  It  is  melancholy  to  think  what  a 
waste  of  human  activity  has  been  occasioned  by  this  weakness ; 
how  many  purposes  which,  if  concentrated,  might  have  left 
deep  traces  of  good,  have  been  applied  in  opposite  directions ; 
how  many  well-meaning  men  have  laid  a  benumbing  hand  of 
timidity  on  their  own  good  deeds,  and  passed  through  life 
without  leaving  one  permanent  impression  of  their  character 
on  society.  It  is  not  want  of  an  ample  sphere,  it  is  not  pover- 
ty of  means,  it  is  not  mediocrity  of  talent,  that  makes  most 
men  so  inefficient  in  the  world ;  it  is  a  want  of  singleness  of 
aim.  Let  them  keep  a  steady  eye  fixed  on  the  great  ends  of 
existence ;  let  them  bear  straight  onwards,  never  stepping 
aside  to  consult  the  deceitful  oracle  of  human  opinion;  let 
them  heed  no  spectators  save  that  heavenly  cloud  of  witnr.-  — 
es  that  stand  gazing  from  above ;  let  them  go  forth  into  the 
struggles  of  life  armed  with  the  assurance,  "  Fear  not,  for  I 
am  with  you";  —  and  each  man  will  be  equal  to  a  thousand  ; 
all  will  give  way  before  him;  he  will  srattcr  renovating  princi- 


494  PEACE  IN  DIVISION. 

pies  of  moral  health ;  ( he  will  draw  forth  from  a  multitude  of 
other  minds  a  mighty  mass  of  kindred  and  once  latent  energy ; 
and,  having  imparted  to  others  ennobled  conceptions  of  the 
purposes  of  life,  will  enter  the  unfolded  gates  of  immortality, 
breathing  already  its  spirit  of  sublimity  and  joy.  Brethren, 
"  how  long  shall  we  halt  between  two  opinions  ?  " 


A    000  11 5  304     8 


